FINRA-registered brokerages' gangbusters 2025 pushed up the industry's pretax profits by more than one-third last year.
While the figures exclude wealth management firms without brokerage arms and include some companies that are broker-dealers but not wealth management firms,
Among the most notable findings: FINRA member firms raked in pretax profits of almost $115 billion last year. That reflected massive asset appreciation, as well as a rise in trading activity across the financial industry.
Brokerage firms drove tidy profits, despite the wealth management industry's continued migration toward registered investment advisory firms. Greater flexibility and operational simplicity, as well as an "evolution of the platforms and how people work with their clients," are ratcheting up the size of RIAs, according to Eric Amar, the former chief growth officer of Focus Financial Partners who is now founder and CEO of Accelerated Wealth, a private equity-backed minority investor in wealth management businesses.
That doesn't mean that broker-dealers are going away.
"As the investor, we don't solve for regulatory regime — we solve for, is it a good company in terms of the quality of the work that they do and their growth patterns? Are they good people to work with, and do they align with our vision?" Amar said, noting that a firm's regulatory registration isn't part of that criteria. "Those kinds of things don't matter because we can build great businesses across the board if we have those three."
Reps and trades keep climbing higher
FINRA's annual stats release documented some healthy businesses. For the fourth straight year, the headcount of registered representatives at brokerages grew, with at least 40,000 new entrants joining the industry. Stock trading volume set a record, reaching $828 billion in transactions involving exchange-listed equities.
"This year's report reflects a securities industry in transition — growing in professionals, a concentration in firms and evolving in how and when investors trade," Jonathan Sokobin, FINRA's chief economist and head of regulatory economics and market analysis, said in a statement. "These developments, as the industry continues to post strong results, present both opportunities and challenges that merit dialogue among investors, member firms, and market participants."
Scroll down the page for six charts tracking key industry statistics from FINRA's annual snapshot report. To see which brokerage firms received the highest grades in financial advisor satisfaction in JD Power's latest annual study, click here. For a look at the main takeaways from Financial Planning's Compensation Survey, follow this link.
A strong year for the financial industry
FINRA members' pretax profits soared in 2025 to at least a five-year high of nearly $115 billion. The collective numbers from firms' required Financial and Operational Combined Uniform Single (FOCUS) reports present eye-popping figures that aren't available anywhere else. To be sure, financial firms always enjoy strong business in years marked by healthy gains in asset values. And the industry-wide pretax profit margin across FINRA member firms of 15% came in relatively low — publicly traded wealth management firms often reach levels above 20% or even 30% and one study last month concluded that advisory practices netted a record 39% margin last year.
Marketing mavens
With marketing as an increasingly important cog in any wealth management firm's organic growth plans, FINRA members' filings with the regulator point to how their websites have come to dominate their efforts. They also show how more traditional forms of marketing remain common across the financial industry, even in a digital era. That said, FINRA received just eight filings last year for "business-related stationery."
Two slices of the pie are growing, as the third shrinks
Once a tiny portion of the field, the ranks of financial advisors who are only investment advisory representatives of RIAs comprise a substantial share of the industry. In the past 15 years, the number of RIA-only representatives has more than doubled to 104,000, a different study found.
Meanwhile, reps who are registered with both an RIA and a brokerage have become the most common type across the financial industry. After a 2007 court decision revoked the "Merrill Lynch rule," also known as the "broker-dealer exemption," brokerages could no longer collect commissions for providing advisory services. As a result, client asset flows and the registration trend toward RIAs continue to push down the share of brokerage-only reps.
The flow of registered representatives' moves in 2025
Even though more experienced advisors switched firms in 2025 than in any of the preceding four years, the vast majority of registered reps maintained the same registration. However, 11,294 former "brokerage-only" reps added an RIA registration to become dual registrants; 3,545 dually registered reps became "RIA-only," and 1,291 "RIA-only" reps turned into dually registered reps last year.
Across all brokerages, the number of FINRA-registered reps has increased 4% in the past five years to 639,723.
Steady moves in opposite directions
While the lines on the chart look relatively flat, they reflect two ongoing trends: a record number of RIA firms and continued industry M&A consolidation that is reducing the number of brokerage firms each year.
When both SEC-registered RIAs and those overseen by state regulators are included, though, the total number of registered firms of any type has climbed 8% over the past decade. That's because new RIAs are launching at a pace that more than offsets the impact of firms folding into one another.
The industry's branch footprint is getting smaller
While the pandemic rapidly accelerated remote work in wealth management, the transition to virtual work just added to the momentum behind the reduction of branch offices in the industry.
With firms eager to find savings on costly real estate and other infrastructure in order to invest that capital in other areas, between 11% and 15% of the industry's branches have closed each year since 2015. And the share of branches that have shuttered has surpassed those opening in six out of those 11 years, with 2024 being the only year that openings surpassed closures. Still, some advisors (and large wealth management firm executives) prefer in-person workplaces.
