Segment: Brokerage
Publication date: Sunday, May 31, 2009
# Pages: (101 pages)

Abstract | Table of Contents

This Annual Statement Analysis report includes all 20 Broker Monitor firms’ statements and analyzes statements in three broad categories:

• Design
• Content
• “Other”

Each category is divided into a number of sub-categories. Design is comprised of three sub-categories – Presentation, Navigation and Flexibility. Six sub-categories make up the Content category – Broker/Firm Information, Summary Information, Messaging, Gain/Loss Reporting, Position Listing and Activity. For the “Other” category, we looked at E-Delivery and an Environmentally Conscious sub-category. We graded various attributes within each sub-category as Poor, Fair, Good or Excellent, based on our analysis and the availability of features.

Even though we broadened our analysis this year and expanded our Statement Benchmarking Audit, we found that many of the best statements did not change much in ranking since our last Annual Statement Analysis. In fact, four of last year’s five top finishers repeated as leaders this year. We also found that full-service firms continued to offer the best statements.

Among the key findings of the report are the following:

• Only one firm prints its statement on recycled paper
• Only one firm provides a comparison of asset allocation to a model
• Two firms provide deposit slips with their statements
• All but six statements include realized gain/loss details
• All but one firm allow clients to suppress mail delivery of paper statements
• One Broker Monitor firm provides only online statements

Subjects

Account reporting

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