Independent Dealer Barometer

Monthly Barometer Survey , September 2026

Confidential. Your responses are aggregated and anonymized, no firm-level data is ever displayed.

Your Firm
The financial questions below are labelled with the line reference for your form.

Showing both sets of Form 1 line references, choose your form to narrow them.

Firm Profile

Asked when you first join the Barometer and refreshed once a year. If nothing has changed, leave it as it is and submit.

Does your firm, or an affiliate under common ownership, hold any of these, managing general agency, exempt market dealer, scholarship plan dealer, portfolio manager? Check all that apply.
Which firm carries or holds your accounts? Choose Self-clearing if you carry your own.
Core Monthly Questions
Your firm's total AUA/AUM in billions of dollars. If you introduce to a carrying dealer, report your own book only. If you carry accounts for other dealers, report your own retail book and exclude carried accounts, the introducing firms count those. Type it in billions: 5.4, 11.2, 33.
Total approved persons / dealing representatives. Count them the way you always have, this is not the Form 1 definition.
Total open client accounts across the firm. An approximate figure from your back office is fine. Regulatory work scales with accounts rather than with assets, so this is the denominator behind cost per account.
Non-registered assistants and all other employees not counted as representatives above
Of the staff counted above, how many work in compliance?
Full-time compliance
Part-time compliance
Split role, title includes specific compliance monitoring or tasks
Compared to last month, how do you view business conditions?
WorseBetter
Please answer this question.
Form 1 Financials (monthly)

Every figure here is one you already file monthly. Statements B and D both sit in the monthly financial report, so nothing below asks you to calculate anything new. Brackets only, we never ask for an exact figure.

Answer from your most recently filed report. Tell us which month it covers and we will line the figures up correctly, there is no need to estimate the current month.

Which month do your figures below describe? We default to the most recent report that is past its filing deadline.
Total revenue for the month you selected above, before any expenses.
Under $250KOver $100M
Your expense total. Variable compensation and commissions paid to third parties are reported on separate lines of the same statement and are asked separately below; exclude them here.
Under $250KOver $100M
Commissions and fees paid out to carrying brokers, fund companies and platforms.
Under $250KOver $100M
Variable compensation divided by commission revenue, as a percentage. No dollar figures needed.
Under 40%Over 80%
Roughly what portion of your total revenue is commission revenue, as opposed to principal, corporate finance, interest and fees? An approximate percentage is fine. Not asked of mutual fund dealers, whose revenue is commission-based by definition.
Under 25%Over 85%
Risk adjusted capital divided by total margin required, as a multiple. No dollar figures needed. Choose Not applicable if your firm does not calculate it.
Under 2×Over 25×
The Part C total across all product lines, bonds, money market, equities, options, futures, mutual funds, new issues and other. Trade tickets, not fills, as the schedule specifies.

Nothing here is published at firm level, and no bracket is shown for a peer group of fewer than five firms.

Quarterly Supplement
Check all that apply.
The planning tool your advisors use most.
What share of your registered representatives direct commissions to a personal corporation? An approximate percentage is fine.
NoneAll
Annual Supplement

Asked once a year. Cost and account structure across the channel, the benchmarks members ask us for most.

A line reference marked * points at proposed Schedule 19, which is not in your current Form 1, answer those from your own records.

Approximate annual technology and infrastructure costs, including compliance technology
Under $25KOver $3M
The portion of your technology spend attributable to compliance, surveillance, trade review, KYC/KYP, registration, regulatory reporting tools
Under $25KOver $1M
All-in compliance cost: compensation for staff time spent on compliance functions (full-time, part-time, contract), compliance technology, and external consultants, audit, and legal
Under $100KOver $5M
Your combined annual premium for the Financial Institution Bond and errors & omissions coverage. Schedule 12 sets the required FIB coverage, so the figure is on the same desk as the rest of these.
Under $25KOver $500K
What your panel auditor charges for the year-end Form 1 audit. The auditor pool is small and shrinking, this is the benchmark that shows what that concentration costs the channel.
Under $25KOver $200K
What share of your AUA is held in nominee name, as opposed to client name? By assets, not by number of accounts.
All client nameAll nominee
What share of your accounts is held in nominee name, as opposed to client name? By number of accounts, not by assets.
All client nameAll nominee
What share of your AUA is registered in Quebec?
NoneOver 50%
Of your AUA, what share is in investment funds rather than other products? Schedule 19 reports funds-only as a separate figure alongside all products.
Under 50%All funds
What percentage of your accounts are fee for service?
NoneOver 90%
What share of your AUA is held in fee-based or managed-fee programs? Asked by assets as well as accounts because fees are charged on assets, the gap between the two answers is the size profile of your fee-based book.
NoneOver 90%
Roughly what share of your registered representatives are 55 or older? An approximate figure is fine, this is the channel's succession picture, not an audit.
Under 10%Over 90%
How are client assets held on the mutual fund side, under a bare trustee arrangement, through an intermediary, or both?
Do you clear and settle your own trades, or introduce to a carrying dealer? The custodian question below is separate, who clears and who holds the assets are not always the same firm.
Which custodian holds the bulk of your clients' assets?
This survey will only take a few minutes; most answers are contained in reports you already file. Your answers file against September 2026 and can be revised until September 30; after that, the next month's survey opens as a fresh submission.

Submission Received

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Federation of Independent Dealers / Fédération des courtiers indépendants, Barometer Survey Demo