Within the wealth management segment, pre-tax income fell to $67.864 million from $75.79 million a year earlier. Assets under management in this area rose to $48.9 billion at the end of March 2025 from $46.6 billion. 

Financial advisor headcount at the end of the first quarter was 933, compared with 936 and 931 at the end of the first quarter of 2024 and fourth quarter of 2024, respectively. 

Retail commissions rose by 7.8 per cent from a year ago primarily due to higher retail trading activity; advisory fees increased by 12.2 per cent due to higher AuM during the billing period.

Within its capital markets business, Oppenheimer said it made a pre-tax loss of $5.97 million, narrowing from $6.7 million.

Across the firm, compensation expenses rose 7.1 per cent compared with a year, ago largely due to costs associated with opportunistic new hires and greater production-related expense. Non-compensation expenses rose 10.3 per cent year-on-year mainly because of a rise in communication and technology expenses and execution-related fees.

“The firm's solid performance for the quarter underscores the ability of our diversified businesses to deliver profitable operating results in increasingly uncertain macroeconomic conditions,” Albert G Lowenthal, chairman and CEO, said.

Lowenthal did not pull his punches on the economic outlook. 

“The likelihood of a recession has increased significantly, coupled with reduced consumer confidence and expectations for higher inflation resulting from increased import prices. There are dimmed hopes for a resumption of active capital market activity with little probability of increased corporate issuances of common stock through IPOs or secondaries,” he continued. 

"Should market declines persist, this will also negatively impact our assets under management and fees earned from that activity. We hope that recent market turbulence will convince policy makers that recent 'on-off' announcements of market-moving policy is significantly impacting likely economic outcomes and that they will significantly reduce such activity,” Lowenthal said. 

“Our wealth management business delivered strong results with a number of improvements over the prior year. The volatile markets spurred robust trading by our clients, driving higher retail commissions. Asset-based advisory fees also increased since AuM, while slightly reduced from recently established all-time highs, remained well above AuMs outstanding during the comparable period,” he added.