T. Rowe Price has really changed its tune

TLDR Probably because of fee revenue, T. Rowe Price has reversed its “slow and steady wins the race” to fast and “outperforming” ETF’s. The latest T. Rowe Price commercial shows that they’ve done a 180 in the last 25 years or so. In college, I remember a commercial that shows a jogger and a sprinter running the same path. The sprinter speeds past the jogger in the beginning, but later on in the journey, the jogger passes the sprinter, who is panting, with his hands on his knees. To me, the takeaway was that T. Rowe’s funds didn’t pursue the “hot stock” or quarterly earnings; rather, they purchased stocks that were fundamentally strong, and potentially undervalued. That was the way to have relatively slow but stable returns over the long term. Recently, T. Rowe has come out with “active” ETF’s. The longstanding research has shown that “passive” ETF’s, those that simply track an index and don’t attempt to outperform them, outperform their active counterparts upwards of 90% of the time. Their recent high-octane commercial shows an expensive sports car, out maneuvering the slower cars. The voiceover explains that T. Rowe’s active ETF’s are “designed” to outperform the index. Again, something that happens approximately 10% of the time. Interesting how the fees T. Rowe can earn from the booming ETF business has reversed their thinking on investing.