Wall Street Wirehouses Continue to Dominate SMA Market

Wall Street wirehouse bulge-bracket firms continue to top the list of sponsors of separately managed accounts for the second quarter of this year, according to a research report just issued by the Money Management Institute and Dover Financial Research.

The report, whose findings were called preliminary, listed the top five sponsors of separately managed accounts as Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, BoA Merrill Lynch, Wells Fargo, UBS Financial and Charles Schwab, respectively based on the value of the separately managed accounts they distributed.

Morgan Stanley Smith Barney contributed $173.6 billion of the total SMA advisory assets of $499.3 billion in the second quarter of 2010. BoA ML contributed $146.3 billion; Wells Fargo $59.6 billion; UBS Financial $52.3 billion and Charles Schwab $44.4  billion. They retained the same rankings in the first quarter of  2001.

Dover Financial Research specializes in research on the SMA industry,while MMI is the Washington, D.C., trade group for that market. SMAs are typically marketed by distributors – otherwise known as sponsors – to high-et-worth individuals as an alternative to mutual funds. Securities in these portfolios are purchased on behalf of the individual investor.