Ameriprise Financial Q3 2026: GAAP EPS +32% to $12.32, but a hedge-accounting swing did much of it

Ameriprise Financial's third quarter of 2026 looks better on a GAAP basis than it was underneath. GAAP earnings per diluted share rose 32% to $12.32, but about $210 million of the $253 million rise in pretax income came from a swing in an accounting mark on its annuity hedges and guarantees, not from the business. The company's own adjusted operating EPS rose 14% to $11.26, or 22% to $12.07 once an annual actuarial review ("unlocking") is excluded. About a third of that 22% came from having 6.5% fewer shares. Clients also moved money out. Asset Management had $9.3 billion of net outflows, and Advice & Wealth Management's total client flows were −$8.5 billion because Comerica Bank's advisor channel left the platform. The figures come from the earnings release; the Q3 10-Q has not been filed yet.

Operating margin here means pretax income as a share of net revenues: what is left after running the business, before income tax. "AUM" is money Ameriprise manages; "AUA" is money it administers or advises on.

Where the profit came from

Ameriprise has three main businesses. Most of their revenue is fees charged as a percentage of client assets, so it rises and falls with markets. Ameriprise's own equity-market proxy, the Weighted Equity Index, was 19% higher on a daily-average basis than a year ago. The S&P 500 daily average was also up 19%.

Advice & Wealth Management (the network of 10,000+ financial advisors) grew net revenues 13% to $3,371 million. Advisory fees, the fees on fee-based "wrap" accounts, rose 18% to $1,965 million, because average advisory wrap assets were 18% higher at $728 billion. Financial planning fees rose 21% to $145 million. Distribution expenses (mostly advisor pay) rose 15%, so the segment margin slipped slightly to 29.3% from 29.5%. Net investment income, largely the spread the company earns on client cash, fell 5% to $461 million. Cash sweep balances were $27.0 billion against $28.8 billion in Q2, and the company attributes $1.5 billion of that drop to the Comerica transition.

Asset Management (Columbia Threadneedle) grew revenues 9% to $990 million, while adjusted operating expenses rose 6%. General and administrative expense rose only 2%. The net pretax margin, which strips out revenue passed through to distributors, rose to 45.7% from 42.1%. Amortization of intangibles fell to $5 million from $15 million, which helped. Performance fees were $10 million versus $2 million.

Retirement & Protection Solutions (annuities and life insurance) earned $198 million excluding unlocking, roughly flat. Market appreciation and favorable life claims were offset by outflows from variable annuities with living-benefit riders and by higher distribution costs from sales. Sales rose 24% to $1.8 billion, led by structured variable annuities. Including unlocking, segment earnings fell 39% to $132 million.

Flows: the weak spot

• Asset Management: −$9.3 billion in total. That is $5.5 billion of institutional outflows, which the company puts down to "client asset allocation decisions", plus −$2.9 billion retail and −$0.9 billion from legacy insurance partners. Of the retail figure, about $0.8 billion came from funds tied to Ameriprise's own closed variable-annuity block, and the rest reflects "industry pressure on active managers". Some areas took in money: $2.4 billion went into ETFs, SMAs and model-delivery offerings, and $1.3 billion into technology and healthcare strategies. Fund performance was not the problem: 78% of retail funds were above median over three years on an asset-weighted basis.
• Advice & Wealth Management: total client net flows were −$8.5 billion, against +$3.4 billion a year ago. Without Comerica, flows were +$5.3 billion (up 56%) and wrap net inflows were +$6.6 billion (up 38%). That implies roughly $13.8 billion of client assets left with the Comerica channel this quarter. On the other side, 258 Huntington Bank advisors have moved over, bringing $28 billion of client assets through early 2027. Another 29 advisors with nearly $4 billion are due in mid-2027, for about $32 billion in total.

What the headline numbers hide

• GAAP vs adjusted: GAAP net income ($1,126M) was above adjusted operating earnings ($1,029M) this quarter. The main reconciling item is a $128 million pretax favorable "market impact on non-traditional long-duration products". That is the change in value of variable-annuity guarantees and their hedges, net of reinsurance. A year ago the same item was an $82 million charge. The $210 million swing accounts for most of the $253 million rise in pretax income, and it is accounting driven by market and interest-rate moves, not client business. Adjusted figures also exclude $11 million of integration/restructuring charges.
• Unlocking cuts the other way: the annual review of insurance and annuity assumptions cost $94 million pretax ($0.79 per share after tax on a GAAP basis). In Q3 2025 it cost only $6 million, because a one-time favorable model enhancement largely offset that year's charge. The prior-year quarter also had $120 million of unlocking in revenue, which is why GAAP "premiums, policy and contract charges" fell 28% to $355 million. On adjusted figures, this makes 2026 look worse than it is: adjusted EPS grows 14% with unlocking and 22% without.
• Buybacks: Ameriprise bought back $871 million of stock (1.6 million shares) and paid $155 million of dividends, returning $1,026 million. That is 93% of adjusted operating earnings excluding unlocking. Diluted weighted shares fell 6.5%, so of the 22% rise in adjusted EPS excluding unlocking, about 7 points came from the lower share count and about 14 points from higher earnings.
• Cash conversion: the earnings release has no cash flow statement, so we cannot compare operating cash flow with net income for this quarter. That comparison waits for the 10-Q.
• Tax: the operating effective tax rate was 21.0%, within the 20%–22% full-year guide. Tax did not add or subtract much this quarter.

On balance the quarter is flattered: GAAP EPS rose 32%, but adjusted operating earnings rose 7% (14% excluding unlocking). A $210 million favorable swing in annuity hedge accounting and a 6.5% smaller share count did most of the rest.

Did last time's read hold up?

Our Q2 2026 analysis named three things to watch:

1. Client cash. AWM net investment income fell 5% year over year after falling 8% in Q2. Sweep balances fell to $27.0 billion, though the company says underlying balances were stable once the $1.5 billion Comerica effect is removed. This held mostly as expected: still falling, but less steeply.
2. Flows. The concern was right and the outflows got bigger. Asset Management went from $6.5 billion of outflows in Q2 to $9.3 billion, and AWM total client flows went from +$3.1 billion to −$8.5 billion because of the Comerica exit.
3. The buyback. Only $1.1 billion of authorization was left after Q2. The board answered with a new $5.5 billion authorization running through September 30, 2028, so the share-count shrinkage can continue.

Q2 also noted that the 20%–22% full-year tax guide implied a lower second-half rate. The Q3 rate was 21.0%.

Takeaway: Leave out the hedge-accounting swing and the smaller share count, and Ameriprise's earnings grew about 14% (adjusted, ex unlocking), helped by equity markets 19% higher than a year ago. At the same time, more client money left than came in, in both asset management and wealth management. The profit growth comes from market levels and from returning capital, not from winning new assets, until the Huntington transfers ($32 billion) offset Comerica and the institutional outflows.

Guidance and outlook

Management's guidance in the release:

• Tax: operating effective tax rate of 20%–22% for full-year 2026, unchanged.
• Asset Management costs: full-year general and administrative expense flat, excluding Seligman and other performance-fee compensation.
• Huntington: about $32 billion of client assets moving onto the platform through mid-2027.
• Capital return: a new $5.5 billion share repurchase authorization through September 30, 2028, roughly $2.75 billion a year. That is close to Q3's annualized pace of $3.5 billion, which was $871 million in the quarter.

Our read: fee revenue is tied to market levels, and the year-over-year comparison gets harder. The Weighted Equity Index ended Q3 at 4,800, 14% above a year earlier, compared with a 19% gap in the daily average. If markets stay flat, fee growth slows in Q4 and Q1. Three things to watch in Q4: whether AWM flows excluding Comerica stay near +$5 billion as Huntington assets arrive; whether Asset Management's institutional outflows of $5.5 billion this quarter return to normal; and whether the GAAP market-impact line, a $128 million gain this quarter, turns back into a charge, which would put GAAP EPS below adjusted again.

Source: Ameriprise Financial Q3 2026 earnings release, Exhibit 99.1 to the Form 8-K filed October 29, 2026 (accession 0000820027-26-000050). The full Form 10-Q for the quarter had not been filed at the time of writing; the release notes asset valuations may be revised in it.