May 9 (Reuters) – Regional brokerage Stifel Financial Corp
said first-quarter earnings rose 11 percent as a rebound
in the markets and improvement in the U.S. economy bolstered
brokerage, investment banking and bond-trading results.

The St. Louis-based company on Wednesday said net income in
the quarter rose to $34.8 million, or 55 cents a share, compared
with $31.4 million, or 50 cents, a year earlier. Analysts, on
average, had expected earnings per share of 54 cents, according
to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S estimates.

May 2 (Reuters) – UBS Wealth Management Americas posted
record first-quarter earnings Wednesday, fueled by increased
client trading and gains in securities sales.

An influx of brokers recruited from rivals also helped boost
the in-flows of client money.

May 1 (Reuters) – Raymond James Financial Inc
estimates its acquisition of Morgan Keegan will boost its
revenue by $815 million and increase earnings by $125 million,
the brokerage and investment bank told investors in closed-door
presentations Tuesday.

The St. Petersburg, Florida-based brokerage also said it
added 980 Morgan Keegan advisers, giving Raymond James a total
5,512 employed and independent-contractor advisers in the United
States, according to the slides.

April 30 (Reuters) – Securities regulators ordered JPMorgan
Securities LLC, a unit of JPMorgan Chase & Co, to pay a
client $1.9 million in damages related to sales of auction-rate
securities, a fraction of what the client had sought.

Ashley Furniture Industries, a manufacturer based in
Arcadia, Wisconsin, had claimed $26.7 million in actual damages
and asked for an equal amount in punitive damages.

NEW YORK, April 26 (Reuters) – Raymond James Financial Inc
says its broker recruiting pace has picked up, not
slowed, since the regional investment bank and brokerage
acquired Morgan Keegan.

“We are hiring at full speed,” Raymond James Chief Executive
Paul Reilly told analysts during a Thursday morning conference
call discussing the bank’s fiscal second-quarter results. “Our
hiring pace has picked up … when we had been concerned it
would slow.”

NEW YORK, April 25 (Reuters) – Raymond James Financial Inc
on Wednesday said its fiscal second-quarter profit fell
after reporting $21 million of pretax expenses related to its
April 2 takeover of Morgan Keegan, offsetting strong improvement
in brokerage and bank revenue.

The St. Petersburg, Florida-based regional investment bank
and brokerage reported net income of $68.9 million, or 52 cents
a share, in the three months ended March 31, down 15 percent
from $80.9 million, or 64 cents, in the year-earlier period.

April 23 (Reuters) – Former executives of famed brokerage
E.F. Hutton & Co. are launching a boutique investment advisory
firm that revives the old name, hoping that memories of the firm
can attract brokers and customers two decades after Hutton faded
from view.

Before being swallowed up through mergers, E.F. Hutton once
had 19,000 employees and employed one of Wall Street’s most
memorable advertising campaigns: “When E.F. Hutton talks, people
listen.”

NEW YORK, April 19 (Reuters) – U.S. brokerage giants Morgan
Stanley Smith Barney and Merrill Lynch on Thursday posted mixed
first-quarter results as investors poured more money into their
accounts but the buying and selling of securities slowed.

Bank of America’s wealth management division — Merrill
Lynch and U.S. Trust — said first quarter net income rose less
than a percent to $547 million from last year while revenue fell
3 percent to $4.36 billion as commissions slumped. Merrill by
itself generated $3.68 billion in revenue, down 2 percent.

NEW YORK, April 19 (Reuters) – Wall Street titans can rest a
little easier this spring: Evelyn Davis, an investor gadfly
whose tirades have brought turmoil to countless annual
shareholder meetings, is taking a breather.

A thorn in the side of many a chief executive, Davis told
Reuters on Wednesday that her age and the fallout from the
Occupy Wall Street movement have convinced her to stick closer
to her Washington, D.C. home this year.

NEW YORK, April 13 (Reuters) – Hundreds of legacy Bank of
America brokers may form the next wave of departures
from Merrill Lynch after many recently pocketed their retention
bonuses, recruiters and former brokers say.

While plenty of attention is paid to the hundreds of Merrill
brokers who quit since BofA acquired the firm in 2008, citing
the negatives of working for a big bank, recruiters expect
similar numbers to leave out of roughly 1,000 Merrill brokers
who had worked for Bank of America Investment Services.