Top 12 Alternatives to Edward Jones

Published on April 28, 2024 at 7:14 pm by Maleha Afzal in Business, Industries, Lists, News

In this article, we will take a look at the top 12 alternatives to Edward Jones. If you want to skip our detailed analysis, you can go directly to Top 5 Alternatives to Edward Jones.

Why are People Choosing Edward Jones

Edward Jones is a broker-dealer and investment advisor. Edward Jones focuses on serving individual investors rather than institutions. The firm has been functional for the past 100 years. More than 8 million individuals from across the globe trust Edward Jones with their investment decisions. The company has home offices in the United States and Canada, serving customers from their 15,000-plus office locations. The company has more than 19,000 financial advisors and has over $1.9 trillion in client assets, as of December 31, 2023. The firm is home to over 54,000 associates across North America and reported revenue worth $12.3 billion in 2023. You can also read our piece on the most profitable banks in the US in 2024.

On December 19, 2023, Edward Jones announced the launch of new tools and products for financial advisors to enhance the client experience. The company plans to allow branches to deliver financial planning directly to clients in Q3 2024. As of now, clients receive financial planning via the firm’s headquarters. The company also made improvements to its Investment Advisory Platform. Edward Jones added the optional tax loss harvesting tool. The tool identifies and analyzes possible investments in certain taxable accounts to realize losses. The Portfolio Assistant facilitates the creation of personalized portfolios, in line with the client’s goals and risk objectives. The company also launched a new program, Financial Advisor Managed Solutions. The advisory program allows clients to delegate their investment decisions to financial advisors. These financial advisors provide regular investment advice and guidance. David Chubak, Head of the U.S. Business Unit at Edward Jones, stated:

“In addition to new tools, products and services, we are also investing in developing, retaining and growing our branch teams by offering new practice models and more flexibility, autonomy and choice in how they run their practices. As we continue into our second century of business, we are equipping our branch teams to hone their craft – with the human-centeredness, practice management and financial acumen needed to serve millions of current and potential clients in a personalized and more complete way.”

Prominent Choices for Individual Investors

BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE:BLK), The Vanguard Group, and Bank of America Corporation’s (NYSE:BAC) Merrill Lynch are some of the best alternatives to Edward Jones. Let’s take a look at their offerings. You can also take a look at the largest banks in the world by market cap.

BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE:BLK) is a prominent investment management company based in New York, United States, that caters to both individual and institutional investors. As of December 31, 2023, BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE:BLK) had over $10 trillion in client assets followed by $289 billion of full-year net inflows. The company has 70 offices in 30 different locations. On January 12, BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE:BLK) announced the acquisition of Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) to expand its investment offerings. The acquisition had a total consideration of $3 billion in cash and a staggering $12 million in shares of BlackRock’s common stock. The acquisition brings BlackRock, Inc.’s (NYSE:BLK) infrastructure client business’ assets under management to $150 billion. The acquisition will enable the company to provide infrastructure expertise to clients across equity and debt solutions. Here are some comments from the company’s Q1 2024 earnings call:

“Our capital management strategy remains consistent. We invest first, either to scale strategic growth initiatives or drive operational efficiency and then return excess cash to our shareholders through a combination of dividends and share repurchases. At times, we may make inorganic investments, where we see an opportunity to accelerate organic growth and support our strategic initiatives. Last month, we announced our agreement to acquire the remaining equity interest in SpiderRock Advisors, a leading provider of customized option overlay strategies in the U.S. wealth market. This transaction expands on BlackRock’s minority investment in SpiderRock Advisors made in 2021 and builds on BlackRock’s strong growth in personalized separately managed accounts via Aperio and ETF model portfolios.”

The Vanguard Group is an investment management company based in Pennsylvania, United States, that offers services to both individual and institutional investors. As of December 31, 2023, The Vanguard Group had more than 50 million clients and almost 20,000 employees. Ever since its inception, the company has offered 423 funds, as of March 31, 2024. The company has $8.6 trillion in client assets. On January 18, The Vanguard Group announced the launch of new digital estate planning tools and solutions in partnership with Vanilla. The offering was launched to a small group of advised clients in the Vanguard Personal Advisor Wealth Management program. The services will be scaled to high net-worth vanguard investors soon. The tool allows eligible clients to have strong financial and legacy outcomes. Clients will be able to get in touch with their advisors to develop visualizations of their net worth, estimate tax outcomes, conduct real estate analysis, and create asset transfer diagrams.

Bank of America Corporation’s (NYSE:BAC) Merrill Lynch is an investment management company based in New York, United States. The company offers a range of services to its clients including personal banking, lending, investments, retirement, insurance, and wealth planning. The Merrill Lynch Investment Advisory Program provides personalized investment advice to clients based on their goals, aspirations, and risk objectives. The company offers a range of investment solutions including stocks, ETFs, bonds, mutual funds, tax-efficient strategies, and other investments and annuities. Here are some comments from Bank of America Corporation’s (NYSE:BAC) Q1 2024 earnings call:

“Our advisors opened 29,000 new bank accounts in the quarter with our customers, deepening their relationships. More than 60% are investing clients in Merrill and 90% of our private banking clients now have a core banking relationship with us. In addition, across our wealth spectrum we saw $60 billion in total flows over the last year. As you can see on this slide, we now manage more than $5.6 trillion in total client balances across loans, deposits and investments, and consumer and wealth management.”

With this context, let’s take a look at the top 12 alternatives to Edward Jones. If you are a new investor you can also read our piece on the best investing podcasts for beginners on Spotify.

Top 12 Alternatives to Edward Jones

Our Methodology

To make our list of the top 12 alternatives to Edward Jones, we employed a consensus approach. We went over several sources, including industry reports and multiple similar rankings. For our primary metric, we sourced the assets under management from each company’s official website. As for our secondary metric, we have included the number of clients each bank has. Moreover, we have also included the revenue for banks. For public companies, we sourced the trailing 12-month revenue, for the latest quarter available, from Macrotrends. To quantify the “value” or “size” of private companies, we selected the annual revenue available for the most recent fiscal year and the number of clients, subject to the availability of data. All of our data has been sourced from official company statements. Our list is in ascending order of the assets under management, primarily, and number of clients or revenue, secondarily.

Top 12 Alternatives to Edward Jones

12. Northwestern Mutual

Assets Under Management (AUM) as of December 31, 2023: $627 Billion

Number of Customers/Clients: 5 Million

Annual Revenue (2023): $36 Billion

Northwestern Mutual is a financial services company based in Wisconsin, United States. The company provides financial planning and investment services. It provides tailored financial solutions based on the client’s investment goals and risk objectives. The company ensures its solutions bring financial stability. Clients may get in touch with a financial advisor to start planning and investing.

11. Raymond James Financial, Inc. (NYSE:RJF)

Assets Under Management (AUM) as of March 31, 2024: $1.45 Trillion

Number of Customers/Clients: 3.5 Million

Revenue (TTM) as of March 31, 2024: $12.09 Billion

Raymond James Financial, Inc. (NYSE:RJF) is one of the best alternatives to Edward Jones. The investment banking company was founded in 1962 and is headquartered in Florida, United States. The company provides financial guidance and planning to individual investors and families. It provides personalized asset, capital, and wealth management solutions to every client based on their risk objectives and investment goals. Raymond James Financial, Inc. (NYSE:RJF) has $1.45 trillion in assets under management (AUM).

10. Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS)

Assets Under Management (AUM) as of March 31, 2024 (Investment Management Business): $1.5 Trillion