Registered investment advisers, methodology

This module uses the SEC Form ADV FOIA bulk archive's IA_ADV_Base_A file, staged by scripts/acquire/adv_ncen_fetch.py and built into data/parquet/adv_advisers.parquet by scripts/build_adv_advisers.py. The source-vintage line on this page derives the raw filing dates, current adviser-year, and current snapshot end date from that parquet at runtime.

The central trap: filings are not advisers

The source rows are filings, so summing them directly would repeatedly count advisers that filed more than once. Every page query deduplicates before aggregating.

The deduplication rule is:

1. Build an adviser key as CRD:<crd>.
2. If crd is missing, fall back to CIK:<cik>.
3. Within each adviser key, keep the latest filing by date_submitted, breaking ties by filing_id.
4. For time series, apply the same rule within each (adviser_key, filing_year) pair so every calendar year keeps one filing per adviser.

The current cross-section uses the latest filing per adviser in the latest calendar year whose adviser count is at least 90% of the preceding year's count. That computed guard prevents a newly arriving partial year from replacing the latest full snapshot and avoids mixing the current panel with advisers whose last observed filing is older.

Coverage and reports_raum

reports_raum is a VARCHAR, not a boolean. Before any adviser query runs, the data layer asserts that every non-null value is Y or N and throws if another token appears. The page includes only Y filings in RAUM charts, rankings, concentration measures, and mandate totals. An N or null means that the adviser does not report RAUM in that filing; it is not converted to zero.

Filed values and anomalies

RAUM queries publish the deduplicated filings as reported and apply no value-based or filing-key exclusions. The computed anomaly note below documents the unusually large filing for CRD 316306, links to its current IAPD Form ADV, and reports the annual total, top-10 share, and HHI both with and without that filing. The counterfactual is disclosure only; the charts and tables include the filing.

What the charts aggregate

The annual charts use the latest filing per adviser within each calendar year. Each history start is derived from field coverage in the parquet. A field's first public year must contain that field for every applicable adviser and have at least 90% as many advisers as the following year. For RAUM, "applicable" means filings with reports_raum = 'Y', and all three RAUM fields must be present. This omits the first partial collection year without relying on typed calendar cutoffs.

The concentration chart measures the annual RAUM shares managed by the largest reporting advisers. The RAUM chart keeps discretionary and non-discretionary mandates separate rather than treating them as interchangeable.

Employees and clients

Employees and clients are shown exactly as filed for every adviser with those fields, regardless of reports_raum. Neither field is imputed: a filed zero remains zero and a null remains missing.

The public client chart starts in the first year where every adviser has a client value and the panel meets the same near-full-year guard. Because later filings contain many zero client values, the chart shows median and 90th-percentile client counts only among filings with a positive count and labels that restriction.

Employee and client charts describe per-firm distributions. They do not measure aggregate industry headcount or aggregate client growth.

Units

RAUM in the parquet is raw US dollars. Overview cards and tables use dollar labels, while the RAUM chart's visible y-axis ticks use $T. Concentration ticks use %, employee ticks use employees, and client ticks use clients. Tooltips and source lines retain the same units.

Out of scope

• Form ADV brochures and narrative brochure text.
• Any adviser-to-fund linkage. That belongs with N-CEN and the separate P-70 work.
• Enforcement or disciplinary history.