86% of Ameriprise Financial Advisors work as independent contracts and limits Ameriprise ability to capture to much franchise fees. If advisors feel they can benefit more without Ameriprise, they make take their themselves and their clients to a new company or start their own Registered Investment Advisory firm.
Falling stock prices lowers AMP's earnings. Decreasing equity prices mean less managed assets and lower net inflows, which translates to lower total management fees. Ameriprise estimates that a 10% drop in the S&P Index causes a 127 million drop in net income.
The average Riversource mutual fund has 1-year performance worse than industry peers. Poor performance lowers assets under management by 1) capital depreciation and 2) net outflows. Less money being managed means lower management fee revenue for AMP.