In our previous research, we ranked brokerage firms based on the proportion of their brokers on December 31, 2015 who had been associated with at least one resolved customer complaint. That approach assigns a higher ranking to a firm if a larger proportion of its current brokers have one or more resolved customer complaint in their career, regardless whether the complaints occurred at their current employer or at a prior employer.

Our new research ranks brokerage firms based on the frequency of customer complaints over conduct at each firm, including both resolved and pending. That is, we rank firms based on their history rather than on their current brokers’ histories.