They nickel and dime you: https://www.edwardjones.com/sites/default/files/acquiadam/2022-12/ira-schedule-of-fees.pdf E.g., just to have an IRA with them costs you $75 / year. They also charge you 2% load on dividend reinvestment of a stock. Plus when you try to leave they smack a $100 termination fee on you. To put this into perspective, at one of the “big 3” low cost brokers (Schwab, Fidelity, Vanguard) (and many others), these services are free. And EJ does absolutely nothing to warrant this price differentiation. Plus there are the indirect shitty aspects of EJ, such as pushy salespeople looking for commissions on subpar product, and terrible expense ratios on nearly all funds they offer (last I checked, which was about 6-8 years ago) on their IRA’s. More on reddit.com

Their model is totally ****ed. People are now wise to how much damn money these % of AUM guys are taking for basically doing nothing. The future is a la carte financial advisory/pay per service rather than % of AUM. Jones knows this but is wayyy too slow to react. I don't know a SINGLE millenial (That doesn't literally work for Jones) that has an account with EJ, let alone any Gen Z. A relative of mine works there and she said the last time there was a small market downturn they cut out free coffee at STL corporate. Pretty pathetic. Anyway yeah they are doing voluntary early retirement and what is unknown is to what degree they will lay off people that don't take it. Edit : If you want to learn more, here's the math behind how much of a ripoff a financial advisor is who takes 1% of your assets under management. Some take even more! More on reddit.com