Brown, who started his Reformed Broker blog five years ago during the financial crisis, announced the firm on his blog, saying: “It is both an amazing and challenging time to be in the wealth management business. There are several major crosscurrents and trends underway that will require a critical combination of skill, wisdom, intuition and alacrity.”

“10,000 people have been turning 65 years old every single day since January 2011, and this will continue for the next 17 years. US households now have $32 trillion in investable assets, up 100 percent since 2002 and 10 percent higher than the previous peak in 2007,” he continued. “Americans collectively have another $14 trillion in retirement plan assets, up 75 percent over the last decade. We believe that much of this wealth is wrongly allocated, underinvested, over-charged or just generally neglected and mismanaged.”

Speaking of his ascent as a blogger on financial affairs, Brown said: “My fellow up-and-coming financial writers from that era - Tyler Durden, Joe Weisenthal and the rest of us who first came online circa 2008 - were all inspired by Ritholtz and his generation of bloggers to some extent. If you had told me then that I would one day be co-founding a wealth management firm with Barry Ritholtz, I would have thought you were crazy.”

On his blog, Ritholtz said he and Brown decided to “spin out as a stand-alone firm.” He said the business will be focused “exclusively on asset management and wealth planning” and the venture had been planned for some time.

Ritholtz is author, with Aaron Task, of “Bailout Nation” and founder of Fusion IQ.