A Spate of Hirings at Brokerages Signals Strength in Job Market for

A fresh wave of job-hopping among bank analysts indicates that the stream of opportunities covering financial institutions remains steady.

Michael Ancell, 34, is scheduled to join Bank of America Asset Management Group today as a buy-side analyst. The unit of Bank of America Corp has $234 billion under management.

For the last seven and a half years, Mr. Ancell was a sell-side analyst at Edward Jones, a regional brokerage in St. Louis. He said the move to the buy side would let him have "more of an impact on where investors put their money."

Brock Vandervliet, 31, joined Salomon Smith Barney on Oct. 11 as a bank analyst covering companies with capitalization of $1 billion to $3 billion. Mr. Vandervliet previously covered smaller Midwest companies for Keefe, Bruyette & Woods Inc.

Mr. Vandervliet said he moved to the Citigroup Inc. unit because he "would be able to cover bigger companies." At Salomon, he will share coverage of the mid-cap banks with Jason Goldberg. Those banks were previously covered by Jacqueline Reeves, who left in June to join Putnam, Lovell de Guardiola & Thornton Inc.

Eric E. Rothmann, 36, joined First Security Van Kasper on Oct. 1 as a senior bank analyst. Mr. Rothmann had specialized in southwestern and midwestern banks at Stephens Inc. in Little Rock. At First Security, his focus will shift to banks and thrifts in the West.

"California continues to gain economic momentum, which is a healthy environment for financial institutions," he said. Mr. Rothmann succeeded Joseph Morford, who joined Dain Rauscher Wessels. Meanwhile, Bradley Ball, 35, who had covered money-center banks at Credit Suisse First Boston, has assumed coverage of specialty finance companies, brokers, and asset managers.

Mr. Ball, who has analyzed money-center banks for the last seven years, said Credit Suisse First Boston wanted to expand its coverage of financial stocks.

"This move was an opportunity to expand my horizon outside of simply banks and look at broadly diversified financial companies," he said. The companies that he will cover include American Express Co., Goldman, Sachs & Co., and T. Rowe Price Inc.

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