Firms continue to dangle multi-million dollar bonuses in front of rival wirehouse teams no matter what it may do to ones balance sheet.

As predicted, no matter the legal bluster, wirehouse (and even regional) recruiting continues unabated. Deals for million dollar producers with all the right metrics are cashing in and scoring bonuses anywhere from 300-400% on a week by week basis.

UBS was more than happy to announce better than $8MM in production recruited away from Merrill Lynch over the past couple of weeks. 

Yes, the same UBS that abandoned the broker protocol and has verbally declared an end to their wire to wire recruiting efforts in favor of retaining their best advisors.

Come again??

With hires in Ohio, Texas, and California UBS was happy to cast a wide net and keep their corporate lawyers on speed dial.

Watch what they do, not what they say. Recruiting deals are at or above all time highs. The demographics of an aging advisor universe is driving the action here. Hiring rookies while attempting to tether them (via draconian employment contracts) has missed the mark.

For the record, this is what capitulation looks like. Broker protocol 2.0 is coming.