Ameriprise's 22% EPS Growth Is Losing the Argument to an Anonymous Source

A record quarter, a $5.5 billion buyback, and a management team that spent its Q&A denying a retention program the press says exists.

AMP · Earnings Call · 2026-10-29

Ameriprise's 22% EPS Growth Is Losing the Argument to an Anonymous Source

The victory lap that wasn't

On the numbers, Ameriprise's Q3 2026 was a clean, almost boring beat. Assets under management and advisement reached $1.8 trillion, up 8%. Revenue rose 10% to $5.1 billion excluding unlocking. Earnings per share jumped 22%. Return on equity — the metric Jim Cracchiolo calls “best-in-class” — rose above 56% from 52.8% a year earlier. The Huntington Bank deal closed on October 19, bringing roughly 260 advisors and $28 billion in client assets, the largest AFIG partnership in the firm's history. The board authorized a new $5.5 billion share repurchase program. Advisor productivity hit a record $1.2 million per advisor, up 13%, and advisor productivity remains the franchise's organizing principle. And yet the stock sits roughly 13% below its January 2025 peak and about 13% below its August 2026 high. The market is valuing Ameriprise at 10.4x net income, down 34% year-over-year. On 2.1x revenue, down 26%. That gap between operating excellence and multiple compression is the story of this report — and the Q&A tells you why.

The “anonymous source” problem

The first question from Jefferies set the tone: press reports had described changes to advisor recruiting and retention packages, and analysts wanted details. Walter Berman's response was flat denial: “we are not making changes.” Jim followed with a broader pushback: “There's a lot of noise out there from anonymous source, from recruiters with their own agendas.” — Jim Cracchiolo, Chairman and CEO · 2026-10-29 Later, Tom Gallagher of Evercore asked directly whether a broad retention program was being rolled out. Jim's answer was blunt: “there's no program.” — Jim Cracchiolo, Chairman and CEO · 2026-10-29 That exchange matters because it is new. The keyword anonymous source appears nowhere in the prior four calls; this quarter it ranks as a top-ten theme. For a management team that usually controls its narrative tightly, spending four separate answers denying a press story is a tell. Either the reporting is wrong — in which case the stock is cheap — or the company is downplaying a costly competitive response, in which case the 29% wealth-management margin has a ceiling nobody is modeling. The history cuts both ways. On the July 2026 call, Jim described recruiting packages with “paybacks … as high as 8 years on a cash basis, which is crazy because some of them have gotten really aggressive.” — Jim Cracchiolo, Chairman and CEO · 2026-07-23 On the January 2026 call he insisted “we're not looking to just attract anyone here.” — Jim Cracchiolo, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer · 2026-01-29 Yet the firm has repeatedly acknowledged making selective adjustments for the right advisors. The competitive environment has been a top-three keyword for two straight quarters. The new element is not the competition — it is the press leak and the combativeness it triggered.

I review these deals when they get to a certain size, and certainly I can say on a reverse re-engineer, I scratch my head … these are having seven, eight-year paybacks on cash.
Walter Berman, Chief Financial Officer · 2026-10-29

That is Walter's economics argument, and it is a good one. But it is also the argument of a company that believes it is winning on value proposition while the market suspects it is losing on price.

What the market is actually pricing

The organic engine is still running. Excluding Comerica, client net inflows rose 56% to $5.3 billion, wrap net inflows rose 38% to $6.6 billion, and the organic flow rate held around 4%. Organic net new asset growth is the metric management wants investors to focus on, and it improved sequentially. But two things muddy that picture. First, cash sweep balances — $81 billion, down 5% year-over-year — are stable but no longer growing, and the mix is shifting toward third-party money-market funds. Second, the rate outlook cuts both ways. Analysts pressed on the two additional Fed hikes priced into the curve; Walter conceded that higher rates could fuel even more aggressive recruiting packages from competitors. The global Fed rate hike theme helps Ameriprise's cash earnings but simultaneously raises the cost of the talent war. The valuation math is the bull case in one line. Free cash flow less stock compensation runs at $2.8 billion, up 67% year-over-year, and the company repurchased $779 million of stock in the June quarter at an average price of $491. Management is voting with its wallet. The new authorization is explicit permission to keep doing so.

The tension that matters

Ameriprise is a high-return, cash-generative compounder whose multiple has been cut roughly in half from its 2021 peak because the market doubts the durability of organic growth in an industry where advisors can be bought. The company's answer is philosophical: we build advisors, we do not rent them. That answer has produced a 56% ROE and a 10.4x earnings multiple. The Q3 call showed that answer coming under attack — not from a competitor's balance sheet, but from a narrative. If the anonymous source is wrong, the buyback is buying dollar bills at fifty cents. If the anonymous source is even partially right, the repurchase authorization is a signal of confidence that the market has already decided not to believe.