Merrill, Morgan Stanley, UBS, Wells Fargo lose net 517 experienced advisors in H1 2026

Merrill, Morgan Stanley, UBS and Wells Fargo lost a net 517 experienced advisors in the first half of 2026, according to Diamond Consultants. By Diamond's count, the same four firms shed 302 experienced advisors across all of 2025, so six months of this year have taken more out of the group than the previous twelve.

Diamond defines the four firms as Merrill, Morgan Stanley, UBS and Wells Fargo, and the population it counts is experienced advisors. A net figure of that size indicates departures exceeded additions by 517 over the six months; it is not a gross tally of everyone who left.

The comparison to 2025 is the sharper one. The same group needed a full year to produce a net loss of 302 experienced advisors, and it produced 517 in half the time. Doubling the half-year rate would put the 2026 net loss above 1,000. That is arithmetic on the first six months, not a Diamond forecast, and it assumes the same pace holds through December.

The Diamond figure measures what left four firms, and it gives no destination breakdown or link to specific platforms. One independent network reports its own numbers over the same year.

XYPN says its registration pipeline has reached 110 firms and that it added more than 370 advisors in 2026. The network now reports 2,400 members, 300 of whom are SEC-registered practices.

Those figures are not a measure of where the wirehouse advisors went, and the units differ. A registration pipeline is a count of firms preparing to register; the 370-plus figure counts advisors and comes from XYPN's own reporting. The two sets of numbers sit in the same news cycle, but nothing in the coverage ties them into a single flow from the four firms to XYPN.

Whether the second half runs at the same rate as the first is the open question the Diamond count sets up. Nothing in the reported figures yet answers it.