The retail broker-dealer LPL Financial Services has hired away PNC Wealth Management's chief investment strategist, Jeffrey Kleintop.
Mr. Kleintop left PNC on Friday and started at LPL this week in its Boston office as senior vice president and chief market strategist. He joined PNC in 2000.
His decision to leave was his own and he will be replaced, a PNC spokeswoman said. Mr. Kleintop could not immediately be reached for comment.
A number of other top stock strategists have left major investment firms this year.
Francois Trahan, who had been the chief investment strategist at Bear Stearns, and Jeffrey deGraaf of Lehman Brothers, Wall Street's top-rated technical analyst, both joined the boutique investment and research firm ISI. Satya Pradhuman, who had been Merrill Lynch's chief small-cap strategist, left Merrill to set up his own shop.
PNC Wealth Management, which serves high-net-worth clients, is a unit of the $119 billion-asset PNC Financial Services Group Inc. of Pittsburgh, the nation's 11th-largest banking company.
LPL, which has branches throughout the country, was formed in 1989 through the merger of the brokerage firms Linsco and Private Ledger. It has a core staff of roughly 1,700.
