How is the investment platform? Is there a lot of flexibility? What would you grade it.
Not an advisor but I’m very familiar with LPL. You’ll use either the SAM or SWM platforms depending on if you’re a pure LPL advisor or a hybrid RIA. Either way, both platforms are very open architecture so you’ll have more flexibility there than at most large BDs. If you think about LPL’s biggest competitors - Ameriprise, Ed Jones, and Raymond James - only RJ has kept their platforms so open. Ameriprise took about 1,500 products off their platform earlier this year and EDJ is still building out their advisory platform.
These days I’d say LPL offers about as much flexibility as you’ll find at a large BD.
Cool, thanks for the thoughts.