Methodology
Rule-based definitions for how RIA Signal counts firms, advisor movement, recruiting lanes, credential activity, and market structure.
Coverage And Refresh
Firm Coverage
Current SEC and state firm rosters, current registration presence, and current disclosure fields used in registration-overlap and market-structure work.
Representative Coverage
Current employments, registrations, branch locations, prior registrations, exams, and designations from the individual representative roster.
Publishing Windows
Homepage movement and credential views use the latest 7 business days in the published representative history. Recruiting lanes use the latest 30 business days. Narrower article windows are stated in each piece.
Movement And Recruiting Rules
| Measure | Rule | Where It Shows Up |
|---|---|---|
| Firm-to-firm move | Recorded when exactly one current employment disappears and one new employment appears between one published representative roster and the next. Same-entity affiliate conversions are removed from published direct-move counts. | Flow trends, recruiting lanes, and direct-move analysis. |
| New to industry | Recorded when a representative appears in current data with no prior normalized record. | New-arrival totals and firm inbound counts. |
| Industry departure | Recorded when a previously present representative no longer appears in the current roster. | Departure totals and firm outbound counts. |
| Joined firm / Left firm | Used when employment additions or removals do not resolve to one clean one-for-one swap. | Hiring and outflow boards, but not direct origin-to-destination recruiting lanes. |
| Recruiting lane | Built from direct firm-to-firm moves grouped by normalized origin and destination entity over the latest 30 business days in scope. | Published leaderboard uses a default threshold of at least 3 distinct advisors. |
| Office-level team move | Requires the same origin firm, the same destination firm, and the same old branch street, city, state, and postal code when those old-address fields are clean and non-conflicting. | Team-move watchlists and destination-launch checks. |
When we evaluate a possible destination launch rather than an existing receiving office, we add a narrower check on current destination size and recent firm-insert activity. Those narrower filters are stated directly in the methodology note of the relevant article.
Data Sources
| Source | What We Use It For | Refresh Rule |
|---|---|---|
| Current SEC firm roster | Firm CRDs, legal and business names, headquarters fields, client and service disclosures, private-fund signals, and current SEC registration presence. | Current SEC roster at the latest common business date used across the site. |
| Current state firm roster | Current state-registration presence used for total firm counts and SEC-versus-state overlap work. | Current state roster at the latest common business date used across the site. |
| Current individual representative roster | Representative employments, registrations, branch locations, prior registrations, exams, designations, and the movement changes derived from one published roster date to the next. | Current representative roster, plus 7-day and 30-day historical windows. |
| Current firm disclosure fields | Rule-based firm classification uses current client mix, service mix, pooled-vehicle management, private-fund reporting, ERA status, and limited legal-name cues. | Current disclosure state at the latest common business date used across the site. |
Classification, Credentials, And Limits
Firm Counts And Overlap
Active firm counts are based on distinct current CRDs across the SEC and state rosters. SEC-state overlap uses shared current CRD presence across those two current rosters.
Market Structure Buckets
Current classifications are rule-based, not marketing-label based. Output buckets are wealth manager, hybrid advisor, private fund manager, institutional asset manager, family office, and unknown.
Credential Activity
Credential counts come from field-level updates under exams and designations across the latest 7 business days in scope. Firm leaderboards count distinct advisors and assign activity to the advisor's current primary listed employment.
Known Limitations
Regulatory Timing
Our counts reflect when completed regulatory data becomes available, not necessarily the exact internal date a hire, departure, or credential effort began.
Visible Roster Changes, Not Economics
Movement counts track disclosed roster changes. They do not directly measure asset transfer, compensation terms, team economics, or whether a move was organic or acquisition-related.
Bias Toward Fewer False Positives
Same-entity grouping and office-level branch matching are intentionally conservative. That reduces false recruiting signals, but it also means some borderline cases are left out.