12 Best & Worst Broker-Dealers: Q3 Earnings, 2021

Related: 12 Best & Worst Broker-Dealers: Q2 Earnings, 2021

Eleven of the biggest financial services firms with large broker-dealers reported higher earnings in the third quarter of 2021 versus a year earlier, when some of them set aside reserves for loan losses tied to the coronavirus pandemic. These 12 firms and other financial services companies will start reporting their fourth-quarter results for 2021 on Jan. 21. All figures in the slideshow represent year-over-year changes in net income and earnings per share, as well as in the number of financial advisors or other reported results tied to wealth management or private banking operations.

Advisor Headcount

Overall, three wirehouse firms — Bank of America (Merrill/Private Bank), UBS (Americas) and Wells Fargo — saw their combined headcount of financial and wealth advisors shrink by 2,930 over the past 12 months to 37,703 as of Sept. 30. Morgan Stanley no longer includes the size of its advisor force in its quarterly financial statements. Four other large broker-dealers tracked by ThinkAdvisor — Ameriprise Financial, LPL Financial, Raymond James and Stifel Financial — had a total of 40,464 advisors. That's up 2,895 from last year.