CHARLOTTE, North Carolina (Reuters) – As the economy shows signs of stabilizing, major retail brokers are increasingly comfortable with leaving the largest brokerage houses and setting out on their own, according to a company that provides services to the brokers.

Retail brokers have been leaving the biggest companies all year, but now some of the most successful brokers are jumping ship, said Barnaby Grist, who recruits independent advisers to use Charles Schwab Corp’s (SCHW.O) support systems.

“The big difference now is the size of the teams,” Grist said. “We’re now seeing $200, $300, and $400 million teams leaving the biggest firms to open their own as independents.”

Industry insiders term such advisers “breakaway brokers.”

Schwab, one of the largest U.S. providers of support for independent investors and advisers, said on Friday that nearly half of its latest survey’s respondents were interested in potentially leaving their firms to become independent advisers.

The study concluded that 60 percent of brokers at the major firms find some level of independent advisory work at least “somewhat appealing.” Roughly 80 percent of those surveyed said their clients would follow them to a new firm, and more than half, 54 percent, said their current firm’s brand does not help retain clients.

The study surveyed 200 financial advisers at 15 firms, and was conducted by Koski Research, a San Francisco-based marketing research firm. The respondents’ average assets under management were $84 million.

(Reporting by Joe Rauch; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

By Jessica Wohl

CHICAGO (Reuters) – When the U.S. holiday shopping season kicks off on the day after Thanksgiving, retailers can expect to see millions of less frightened, but even more bargain-hungry customers cross their thresholds.

Industry experts expect a strong turnout on Black Friday, which falls on November 27 this year, as deep discounts lure shoppers after more than a year of subdued spending. But they caution it will not mean a bumper holiday season in the weeks leading up to Christmas since consumers still remain cautious.

“Given what we know about consumer shopping patterns, even this month, I would suspect it will turn out to be a very strong performance,” said Michael Niemira, chief economist of the International Council of Shopping Centers.

Special promotion days have been big drivers of sales, he said, pointing to the lift retailers saw on the November 11 Veteran’s Day holiday.

Retailers and websites dedicated to Black Friday deals have leaked sales plans earlier than usual, in the hopes of sparking demand for flat-panel televisions, toys and other goods after 2008′s worst holiday season in decades.

While the economy remains weak and unemployment has risen, U.S. shoppers have had more than a year to adjust their spending and digest the bad news. In 2008, holiday shopping started just weeks after the global financial crisis erupted.

“Certainly last year was a year of tremendous uncertainty going into Black Friday because we were right in the middle of the storm,” said Chris Donnelly, a partner in Accenture’s retail practice. “There is much less panic, I would say, or much less uncertainty, as we go into the season.”

Even so, more than 172 million shoppers visited stores and websites from Thanksgiving Day through Sunday last year, up from 147 million in 2007, according to the National Retail Federation. The average amount of money spent by shoppers over that weekend rose 7.2 percent to $372.57 per person.

Those numbers, however, did not prevent a sales slide of 3.4 percent for the entire shopping season last year, marking the first decline since the NRF began tracking such data.

While the NRF has not issued a Black Friday forecast, it expects 2009 holiday season sales to decline 1 percent. The ICSC forecast a 1 percent to 2 percent rise.

“Retail sales have been, while not stellar, somewhat stabilizing over the past few months and there is every reason to believe that as we go into the holiday season that we are going to see some stability as well,” Donnelly said.

BARGAIN FRIDAY

The term “Black Friday” is said to have originated in Philadelphia during the 1960s to describe the difficulty of police and drivers to deal with exceptionally heavy traffic on that day as shoppers flooded the city’s commercial center.

The phrase was later co-opted by retailers to refer to the holiday shopping period as a time of year when their business moves into the black, or turns a profit.

Niemira, for one, refers to Black Friday as “Bargain Friday” since it is known for deals.  Continued…

By Jessica Wohl

CHICAGO (Reuters) – When the U.S. holiday shopping season kicks off on the day after Thanksgiving, retailers can expect to see millions of less frightened, but even more bargain-hungry customers cross their thresholds.

Industry experts expect a strong turnout on Black Friday, which falls on November 27 this year, as deep discounts lure shoppers after more than a year of subdued spending. But they caution it will not mean a bumper holiday season in the weeks leading up to Christmas since consumers still remain cautious.

“Given what we know about consumer shopping patterns, even this month, I would suspect it will turn out to be a very strong performance,” said Michael Niemira, chief economist of the International Council of Shopping Centers.

Special promotion days have been big drivers of sales, he said, pointing to the lift retailers saw on the November 11 Veteran’s Day holiday.

Retailers and websites dedicated to Black Friday deals have leaked sales plans earlier than usual, in the hopes of sparking demand for flat-panel televisions, toys and other goods after 2008′s worst holiday season in decades.

While the economy remains weak and unemployment has risen, U.S. shoppers have had more than a year to adjust their spending and digest the bad news. In 2008, holiday shopping started just weeks after the global financial crisis erupted.

“Certainly last year was a year of tremendous uncertainty going into Black Friday because we were right in the middle of the storm,” said Chris Donnelly, a partner in Accenture’s retail practice. “There is much less panic, I would say, or much less uncertainty, as we go into the season.”

Even so, more than 172 million shoppers visited stores and websites from Thanksgiving Day through Sunday last year, up from 147 million in 2007, according to the National Retail Federation. The average amount of money spent by shoppers over that weekend rose 7.2 percent to $372.57 per person.

Those numbers, however, did not prevent a sales slide of 3.4 percent for the entire shopping season last year, marking the first decline since the NRF began tracking such data.

While the NRF has not issued a Black Friday forecast, it expects 2009 holiday season sales to decline 1 percent. The ICSC forecast a 1 percent to 2 percent rise.

“Retail sales have been, while not stellar, somewhat stabilizing over the past few months and there is every reason to believe that as we go into the holiday season that we are going to see some stability as well,” Donnelly said.

BARGAIN FRIDAY

The term “Black Friday” is said to have originated in Philadelphia during the 1960s to describe the difficulty of police and drivers to deal with exceptionally heavy traffic on that day as shoppers flooded the city’s commercial center.

The phrase was later co-opted by retailers to refer to the holiday shopping period as a time of year when their business moves into the black, or turns a profit.

Niemira, for one, refers to Black Friday as “Bargain Friday” since it is known for deals.  Continued…