T. Rowe Price separately managed accounts (SMAs)
Adaptable strategies for diverse objectives
Align distinctive portfolios with unique client goals. T. Rowe Price SMAs bring tactical flexibility to our research-driven, risk-aware active investment process.
Discover the benefits of separately managed accounts
Customization
Offer a more personalized investment experience with an approach that considers client needs and preferences.
Transparency
Access portfolio holdings, transaction history, and performance to assess against client goals and objectives.
Tax flexibility
Address clients’ tax-management needs with the ability to sell specified portfolio holdings.
Partnership
Deliver exceptional client experiences with access to our active management expertise and a team of service specialists.
SMA strategies
Address complex client needs with our versatile SMA solutions. We've leveraged our extensive experience across asset classes over many market cycles within flexible SMA portfolios. Strategies may also provide the opportunity to restrict investment in certain industries and companies for better alignment with client goals.*
Explore our featured U.S. equity strategies.
U.S. All-Cap Opportunities Equity SMA
Seeks long‐term growth of capital by investing primarily in companies with high growth potential in what we believe are the fastest-growing economic sectors.
U.S. Blue Chip Growth Equity SMA
Seeks long-term capital appreciation by investing in the common stocks of leading large and medium-sized companies with seasoned management, strong financial fundamentals, and potential for above-average growth.
Capital Appreciation Equity SMA
Seeks long-term capital appreciation through large-cap equity investments focusing on both growth and value styles.
U.S. Dividend Growth Equity SMA
Seeks to provide a growing level of dividend income, long‐term capital appreciation, and a reasonable level of current income by investing in companies with a sustainable competitive advantage and that are likely to show consistent earnings and dividend growth over time.
Take the next step
1. View all SMA strategies, literature, and performance.
2. Determine which strategies align with your clients’ objectives.
3. Contact us to learn how to put SMAs to work for your clients.
How do SMAs compare with mutual funds and ETFs?
Explore the features, benefits, and trade-offs between mutual funds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and separately managed accounts (SMAs).**
| SMAs | ETFs | Mutual funds | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Diversified portfolio | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Actively managed | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Institutional trading | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Professional management | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Tax efficiency | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Customization | ✔ | ||
| Transparent transactions | ✔ | ||
| Direct security ownership | ✔ | ||
| Flexible tax planning | ✔ |
Frequently asked questions
A separately managed account (SMA) is a portfolio comprised of stocks, bonds, and other securities that are directly owned by an investor—in contrast to owning shares in a pool of securities, as with a mutual fund. This distinction affords financial professionals increased flexibility to align holdings with client needs and preferences and to have more control over tax management. Increased transparency allows for a more individualized level of portfolio management, in which financial professionals can access portfolio holdings, transaction history, and performance to assess against client goals and objectives.
Among other client experience and operational distinctions, ownership structure is the primary difference between SMAs and vehicles like mutual funds or ETFs—in which the end investor owns a share in the fund, but the fund directly owns all the underlying securities. By contrast, the securities in an SMA are owned by the client.
Investors and even financial professionals are sometimes unclear about the difference between a separately managed account (SMA) and a managed account—such as a managed discretionary account (MDA) or an individually managed account (IMA). The short answer is that an SMA is an investment vehicle or product, while MDAs and IMAs refer to investment services or schemes—their titles are descriptive of how an investment manager oversees the account.
How End Investors Benefit:
- Customization: SMAs offer clients the ability to impose reasonable restrictions to better align their portfolios to their investment objectives, risk tolerance, and preferences.*
- Tax Management: Direct ownership of the underlying securities enables robust and personalized tax management—including tax loss harvesting, capital gain deferral, and wash sale avoidance.
- Transparency: Investors have their own cost basis and can see their holdings and trading activity.
- In-Kind Funding: SMA investors may be able to fund a new portfolio in kind with existing liquid securities (subject to portfolio manager's discretion).
How Financial Professionals Benefit:
- Client Needs: SMAs allow financial professionals to accommodate high-net-worth investors, who tend to have more robust needs around tax management, customization, and transparency–and therefore benefit from the direct ownership of the underlying securities conferred by SMAs.
- Support and Expertise: Our dedicated client service team of skilled specialists offers onboarding support, account-specific requests, and more to help financial professionals provide the best experience for clients. Outsourcing portfolio management to our deeply experienced investment experts also frees up time for more client interaction and acquisition.
SMA education
SMA brochure
Learn about our SMA offerings and the benefits of partnering with our investment experts.
Municipal SMA brochure
Explore our municipal SMA strategies and the T. Rowe Price municipal bond advantage.
SMA client brochure
Educate and guide your clients with this short, introductory brochure.
Contact us
Important Information
*Please note that the ability to impose reasonable investment restrictions is not guaranteed; is dependent upon strategy, market conditions, and individual investor circumstances; and is subject to the portfolio manager’s acceptance. The amount and type of reasonable restrictions, when available, are governed by asset class, strategy type, and individual investor circumstances and are subject to the portfolio manager’s acceptance.
**Differences between compared investments may include sales and management fees, liquidity, volatility, tax features, holdings, and other features, which may result in differences in performance.
Your account returns may differ from the composite returns shown due to various reasons that may include, but are not limited to, differences in timing of trades, rounding of shares, timing of cash flows and/or any client-imposed restrictions or customizations.
RISK CONSIDERATIONS: All investments are subject to risks, including the possible loss of principal. International investments can be riskier than U.S. investments due to the adverse effects of currency exchange rates; differences in market structure and liquidity; as well as specific country, regional, and economic developments. A growth or value approach to investing could cause underperformance compared with other stock portfolios that employ different investment styles. Growth stocks tend to be more volatile than value stocks, and their prices usually fluctuate more dramatically than the overall stock market. The intrinsic value of a stock with value characteristics may not be fully recognized by the market for a long time or a stock judged to be undervalued may actually be appropriately priced at a low level. Fixed income securities are subject to credit risk, liquidity risk, call risk, and interest rate risk. As interest rates rise, bond prices generally fall. The municipal bond portfolios will be highly impacted by events tied to the overall municipal securities markets, which can be very volatile and significantly affected by unfavorable legislative or political developments and adverse changes in the financial conditions of municipal securities issuers and the economy.
T. Rowe Price SMAs investing in non-U.S. issues will gain exposure primarily through investments in American Depositary Receipts.
This material is provided for general informational purposes only and is not intended to provide legal, tax, or investment advice. This material does not provide recommendations concerning investments, investment strategies, or account types; it is not individualized to the needs of any specific investor and not intended to suggest any particular investment action is appropriate for you.
The availability, expense, and minimum balance required for each strategy will be dependent on the sponsor’s platform. Each strategy has the potential to be offered as a model delivery, retail SMA, direct sub-advisory or dual contract depending on the platform.
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