LPL recruits $160M Edward Jones advisor Chris Stockton

LPL Financial has added a $160 million advisor from Edward Jones. Chris Stockton, founder of Stillwater, Okla.-based Guidepost Wealth Management, joins LPL's broker-dealer and RIA platform with roughly $160 million in advisory, brokerage, and retirement plan assets, according to the firm.

Stockton graduated from Oklahoma State University with degrees in finance and management. He has spent seven years serving business owners, growing families, and retirees, and holds the CEPA designation. The practice includes administrative assistant Ashley Mayfield. Guidepost takes its name from Stockton's goal of providing clarity for the path ahead, a philosophy he says starts with the client's interests. In LPL's announcement, he cited the firm's independence, stability, technology, and back-office support.

Stockton's book is built around life transitions: selling a business, retiring, losing a loved one. He also speaks regularly to college students about financial awareness. Those moments are when a client's assets are most in play, and RIAs and consolidators have been circling the advisors who hold those relationships. LPL has been part of that conversation this month, too: in an InvestmentNews webinar, the firm's Jeremy Holly examined how value, liquidity, and succession plans can fall out of sync.

Edward Jones loses a seven-year producer in Oklahoma. LPL gains another practice built around the planning conversations the independent channel wants to own. This week's headline moves came elsewhere: UBS pulled three Morgan Stanley teams and Raymond James added a Wells Fargo duo, as PWD reported. But steady one-advisor hires like Stockton's are how LPL adds scale.