Articles published 2/2026
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With Schwab's new $5-per-RIA-client trading fees set to activate Tuesday, Michael Kitces calls it a 'walking-back' of Chuck's 2019, zero-commission pledge. Worse, it sticks RIAs with the whole bill, he adds
Feb 28, 2026The XY Planning Network co-founder's small RIAs will go unscathed by Schwab's block-trade charges, but he calls out Schwab reneging on 'zero,' which upends established client/custodian alignment.
McKinsey finds white knight in Neuberger Berman for its side-slipping, $26-billion RIA, exposed by SEC ruling; Neuberger scores a pipeline of senior partners and unshackles the RIA to compete as a third party
Feb 26, 2026The New York consultancy took nearly five years to unload the wealth and asset manager; McKinsey now admits it was not a 'natural' owner.
LPL finally stops (largely) Anthropic-fueled stock price skid by confirming 'something big' -- with Anthropic -- a new Morningstar report pounding the table to buy LPL shares didn't hurt
Feb 25, 2026The broker-dealer's shares lost $90, falling to $303 over two weeks on fears AI might eat its lunch, but now it has Anthropic on its team; Morningstar predicts a $540 share price soon enough
DFA finally hits $1-trillion in AUM after a reality check trumped 'financial science' and the venerable factor fund shop embraced ETFs, lower fees and a broader market
Feb 24, 2026The Austin, Texas factor-investing giant ETFs carry average fees of 22 basis points – a near 30% cut to its 30 basis points average mutual fund fee.
Vanguard discloses two bets (as client and investor) on one tiny startup to solve huge problems -- a symbiosis from heaven or hell, depending on how it goes with Avantos; it's going well, so far, with SEI, Mercer and others in the bet on the newcomer
Feb 20, 2026Though 'large, complex organizations (like Vanguard) make terrible beta customers, Avantos cut its teeth on giant RIA Mercer, and may make Vanguard finally getting its act together,' an analyst says.
Vestwell scores $385 million 'E' round after it 'jumped' on 'unexpected' Accrue 401(k) deal, and VCs noticed it can now 'repeatably' scale accretively
Feb 18, 2026Aaron Schumm's recordkeeper can spend capital --with abandon and high ROI -- in the green pastures of 401(k) stragglers and payroll companies
Merrill Lynch files motion that berates 'Dynasty' for 'reneging' on arbitration that it says Dynasty sneakily never consented to and now refuses to participate in based on 'implicit' agreement
Feb 18, 2026The Bank of America wirehouse concedes any agreement may be implicit, and FINRA can't control non-members like Dynasty, but an implicit agreement exists, nonetheless, and justice must be served.
New Vanguard CEO hires 10th non-Vanguard exec, a fellow BlackRocker • MaxMyInterest goes up-market with yacht loans • Ron ‘Omani’ Carson is offering post-materialism soul recovery for $8,500 a month
Feb 14, 2026Vanguard seems to be erring toward new blood, though it was never purely old blood • RIA cash manager floats products to ultrahigh-net-worth • The former LPL top seller now sells wealth acquisition methadone
SS&C CEO shouts out Black Diamond coup, after a mass adoption win of Morningstar RIAs, though Advyzon reaped a mighty haul with less pay to the piper
Feb 13, 2026Bill Stone told Wall Street that Black Diamond cemented 'crown-jewel' status internally with 500-plus RIAs but not all Morningstar users took the white glove prix-fixe meal.
Altruist CEO Jason Wenk says he was caught off guard in Mexico when his firm's 'DeepSeek' moment triggered a 'Big 3' Wall Street meltdown, but his AI revolution is only beginning, he tells RIABiz
Feb 12, 2026To RIAs, Altruist is the No. 3 or No. 4 custodian but now the No. 1 custodian's CEO, Rick Wurster, is in full damage control mode, trying to reassure investors that Schwab's hegemony is still intact.
Vivek Ramaswamy's crypto resolve faces early test with Strive now $400 million-plus under water on Bitcoin holdings, while bears predict a crypto 'death spiral'
Feb 11, 2026The Trump acolyte jettisoned his RIA as he embraced a Bitcoin treasury company, imbuing crypto with free market values -- stemming from bypassing banks and governments
Vivek Ramaswamy's crypto resolve faces early test with Strive now $400 million-plus under water on Bitcoin holdings, while bearish analysts predict a 'death spiral' for crypto industry
Feb 11, 2026The Trump acolyte jettisoned his RIA as he embraced a Bitcoin treasury company, imbuing crypto with free market values -- stemming from bypassing banks and governments
Dynasty Financial Partners raises more than $100 million with plan to get 'aggressive' if market turns 'choppy' -- and it'll hire 65 to 70 staff
Feb 10, 2026Dynasty CEO Shirl Penney says who buys stakes matters -- with Schwab, JP Morgan and BlackRock reupping, and Mubadala-owned Fortress jumping in, with RIAs, end clients and 'teammates' landing shares.
Schwab discloses it's set to levy new $5-per-client, per-block-trade fees that could balloon cost for RIA custody clients by thousands of dollars
Feb 6, 2026The RIA custodian has posted the coming fee on its pricing schedule -- raising questions related to trade-away policies, best execution and payment-for-order-flow.
Amid skyrocketing growth, Barry Ritholtz sold a big tranche of shares in his RIA -- at a bargain -- making his CEO Josh Brown the largest among 29 new shareholders and getting 'forever' in return
Feb 4, 2026Ritholtz Weath leapt to $7.7 billion of AUM -- up $5 billion since 2022 -- but the firm's co-founder didn't seek the highest bidder because it didn't achieve his succession goals.
Vanguard's latest vast fund fee slash puts its CEO on defensive because it's enough-already to some critics when service lags, and fees are vanishingly low already
Feb 3, 2026Salim Ramji admits the far-reaching cut was a 'very unoriginal act' but promises it won't cut into funds needed to modernize; some critics aren't buying it.