Dan Ives Is Leaving Wedbush: The Calls and Outfits Investors Remember

Dan Ives is leaving Wedbush Securities after eight years to build what he calls a “modern merchant bank,” a research, advisory, capital-raising and investing shop built around the same AI thesis that made him one of Wall Street’s most quoted tech analysts. The firm, which Ives said will be formally announced in the coming weeks, will sit alongside his continuing coverage of technology stocks, according to his CNBC interview on leaving Wedbush.

Ives, 25-plus years into covering technology, framed the move as a long-germinating bet. “It’s been a phenomenal eight years at Wedbush,” he told CNBC. “But in looking at the next opportunity, it’s to create a modern merchant bank with great partners, long-term capital and something I think will change the way Wall Street looks at investment banks.” His next chapter is built on the same conviction that powered his cable hits: that AI is remaking every balance sheet that touches it, and that the people who spotted it first get paid last.

After Eight Years, Ives Says He Is Building His Own Bank

The new firm, in Ives’ telling, is not a research boutique and not a traditional bulge-bracket advisory. It is a merchant bank under one roof, combining proprietary research, strategic advisory, capital raising and direct investments, with a sector list that starts at technology and stretches into energy and financials. CNBC reported the structure first in his CNBC interview on leaving Wedbush.

Ives said he intends to keep publishing research on technology stocks while building the broader business. “My career has almost built up to something like this,” he told CNBC. “In this AI revolution, it’s seeing the opportunities that are around the corner, and that’s what I think this firm is going to be able to do.” The pitch to partners and clients is that his call sheet and his rolodex are the asset.

My career has almost built up to something like this. In this AI revolution, it’s seeing the opportunities that are around the corner, and that’s what I think this firm is going to be able to do.

Wedbush Says Goodbye and Keeps the ETFs Running

Wedbush confirmed the exit the same day in a paid press release distributed via Yahoo Finance, with Gary Wedbush, the firm’s president and chief executive, framing it as a natural handoff. “Dan has been an exceptional team member of Wedbush, helping bring our firm valuable prominence and expertise in the technology equity markets,” Gary Wedbush said. “It’s a natural step for Dan to seize an entrepreneurial opportunity and I wish him success and look forward to future partnerships with his new venture,” the company said in Wedbush’s official statement on the departure.

Seth Basham, Wedbush’s director of equity research, said the franchise will keep running without him. “We remain committed to relentless client service and see this as an opportunity to further build on our long-standing technology expertise and award-winning research team,” Basham added in the same release. Wedbush Fund Advisers will continue to manage the IVES and IVEP ETFs without interruption, ensuring continuity for clients and investment partners. Wedbush Securities, headquartered in Pasadena, California, has been operating since its founding in 1955.

• Eight years at Wedbush Securities.
• 25-plus years covering technology stocks.
• Two ETFs (IVES, IVEP) continue under Wedbush Fund Advisers.
• Founded in 1955 and based in Pasadena, California.

The Calls That Built His Name on Cable

Ives spent the second half of his Wedbush tenure as one of the loudest mega-cap bulls on television. Business Insider, profiling his shopping habits in SoHo, described him as “one of Wall Street’s biggest optimists when it comes to mega-cap titans like Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Palantir,” with Tesla the most-watched name on his list. That posture turned into a recurring on-air brand: every dip in the AI-leveraged cohort drew the same buy-the-dip note.

The latest iteration of his thesis is a 2026 AI capex call. Wedbush’s Dan Ives described 2026 as “the year AI spending must start showing returns,” per reporting on the $650 billion AI capex forecast for 2026 from the four largest U.S. hyperscalers. The pitch to investors has been that the spend cycle is so large it cannot be ignored, and that returns are now a deliverable, not a promise.

That framing matters for what Ives is selling next. A merchant bank that lives or dies on AI uptake is only as credible as the AI capex cycle its research covers, so his bullishness is no longer just a call sheet, it is the underwriting thesis for the new firm.

1. Apple as more than hardware. A multi-year stance that the App Store and services deserved a hardware-style multiple.
2. Microsoft as the enterprise AI beneficiary. An OpenAI, Copilot and Azure stack that he has treated as the front door to corporate AI budgets.
3. Nvidia as the picks-and-shovels winner. An early call that every hyperscaler AI buildout funnels through Nvidia silicon, regardless of custom-chip efforts.
4. Tesla as the perennial Optimist. An outperform rating that survived a Musk tell-Ives-to-shut-up moment in 2025.

The Eightco Stretch Into Crypto

Before his own firm existed, Ives was already running an unusual side experiment for a sell-side analyst: a chairmanship of Eightco Holdings, a small Nasdaq-listed company that turned itself into a Worldcoin treasury vehicle. Investopedia reported that Eightco said it was raising around $250 million from a private placement “to implement the first-of-its-kind Worldcoin treasury strategy,” with an additional $20 million from BitMine, the ether accumulator whose chairman is Fundstrat head of research Tom Lee, per how Ives became Eightco’s chairman. The company changed its ticker to ORBS from OCTO and re-positioned itself in the same crypto-treasury lane as Strategy, the bitcoin proxy formerly known as MicroStrategy.

The role was brief by Wedbush standards. CNBC’s departure report said Ives served “briefly as chairman of Eightco Holdings.” The episode still functions as a public prototype for what his merchant bank will do: raise capital, place a thematic bet, and use the analyst’s name to draw retail and institutional attention at the same time.

The Outfits Were Part of the Pitch

Ask anyone on cable who Dan Ives is and they tend to answer with a color before a stock pick. Business Insider spent an afternoon with him in SoHo and found him buying hats, browsing neon blazers and turning a coffee stop into a wardrobe consultation. He told the outlet that the look is part of the work: “Even people who don’t know my stock calls, they know me as the person who wears the funky shirts on CNBC.”

The same logic runs through his CNBC interviews and his Investopedia sit-down. He has said dressing “funky” makes him “more relaxed,” and that the wardrobe is “symbolic of just the way that I attack investing.” To followers, that is a transparent pitch: the analyst who looks nothing like a banker is the analyst willing to call things others will not.

• CNBC framing: “the person who wears the funky shirts on CNBC” (Business Insider, 2025).
• CNBC profile: “I dress differently. I go to the beat of a different drum” (CNBC, August 2025).
• Investopedia interview: dressing funky “makes me more relaxed” and helps him do his job better.

From a Snow Milk Capsule to a Solo Bank

In August 2025, Ives took the brand test outside finance, partnering with Brooklyn-based Snow Milk, founded in 2020 by Doobie Duke Sims, on a unisex capsule of graffiti-printed button-downs and polos, with prices starting at $100 and items sold at danivesclothing.com and realsnowmilk.com plus pop-ups in New York and Los Angeles. CNBC noted that the collaboration was Snow Milk’s first partnership with someone from the world of finance. The line was small and explicit: if the personal brand can sell shirts, it can sell a merchant bank.

The new firm is the larger version of that same test. CNBC, Bloomberg and Yahoo each covered the announcement on July 1, 2026, and the line from CNBC’s profile of the Snow Milk collaboration, that the clothing is “symbolic of just the way that I attack investing,” reads more clearly now as a thesis statement than it did a year ago.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is Dan Ives leaving Wedbush?

Ives told CNBC he is leaving to build a merchant bank that combines research, advisory, capital raising and investing under one roof, focused on the opportunities created by artificial intelligence. Wedbush framed the move as a natural entrepreneurial step for a long-tenured managing director.

What is a “modern merchant bank”?

In Ives’ telling, it is a single firm offering proprietary research, strategic advisory services, capital raising and direct investments across sectors that include technology, energy and financials. He described it to CNBC as “a modern merchant bank with great partners, long-term capital.”

Will the IVES and IVEP ETFs keep running?

Yes. Wedbush Fund Advisers will continue to manage the IVES and IVEP ETFs without interruption, ensuring continuity for clients and investment partners, the firm said in its July 1, 2026 press release.

What are Dan Ives’ best-known stock calls?

Ives is best known as a mega-cap bull on Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Palantir and Tesla, and on the AI infrastructure buildout that ties them together. His 2026 stance, that AI capex of $650 billion or more from the largest hyperscalers must start producing returns this year, is the latest version of the same thesis.