[ by Howard Haykin ] Ameriprise Financial Inc., independently operated since 2005 when American Express spun it off, has been on the recommendation lists of many Wall Street research departments.  And earlier this month, Moody's Investors Service affirmed Ameriprise's ratings and said its outlook is stable, citing the firm's "productive financial advisor field force with favorable retention, low expense structure and broad product depth." However, Q2 of 2012 proved to be a speed bump for AMP, as it failed to match the Street's expectations for the past quarter.  Ameriprise reported that quarterly profits fell 29% to $223 million, or 99 cents a share, down from $315 million, or $1.25 a share, a year earlier.  Net revenue on an operating basis rose 2.9% to $2.52 billion and was down 4.2% to $2.51 billion on a fully reported basis.  Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected a per-share profit of $1.32 on revenue of $2.63 billion. Contributions from Different Business Areas. Earnings at Ameriprise were hurt principally by lower management and financial advice fees, and by a decline in net investment income.  The firm also had a drop in earnings from recent acquisitions.  AMP's $1 billion acquisition of the Columbia Management business from Bank of America Corp. in 2010, had been contributing its share of profits, until this past quarter.  Past strength from the company's advice and wealth-management business, had previously been strong, but experienced a let-down in the 2nd quarter. Moody's recently commented that Ameriprise has recently been focusing its attention and efforts on improving profitability and capital efficiency, by growing its less-capital-intensive and higher-return businesses - including the asset management and advice and wealth management segments to the point where they represented the majority of operating income in 2011.  Therefore, it should be anticipated that slowdowns in any of these areas would acutely impact AMP's overall earnings - and this is just what happened in the quarter.just ended. Shares closed at $47.98 Thursday and were inactive after hours.  The stock is down 11% in the past 12 months.   [Market Watch, 7/25/12]