T. Rowe Price's Strategic Investing Approach Has Benefited Our Results

Investors experienced periods of high volatility during the past 20 years, with two strong U.S. bull markets giving way to two of the most brutal bear markets in recent memory: the collapse of the dot‑com bubble in 2000 and the global financial crisis that began in 2007. The coronavirus pandemic that slammed global markets in early 2020 added another high-volatility event.

Throughout, T. Rowe Price remained committed to a disciplined strategic investing approach. Our research shows that our long‑term U.S. equity clients generally have been rewarded.

Performance Remained Strong Over Time

A rigorous study by T. Rowe Price shows that we were able to deliver performance through the many market environments of the past two decades. Of the 18 composites within the institutional diversified active U.S. equity strategies included in the study, 89% outperformed over a majority of rolling five-year periods and 94% outperformed over rolling 10-year periods.¹

Moreover, our performance tended to remain strong over time. Fourteen of the 18 composites had positive active success rates over rolling three- and five‑year periods, while 17 of 18 composites were ahead over rolling 10‑year intervals. ²

A notable 94% generated positive average excess returns over rolling 5- and 10‑year periods, underlining the value of our strategic investing approach.

T. Rowe Price’s Large‑Cap Strategies Proved Worth

The study challenges the commonly held belief that it is not possible for active managers to add value in what is widely regarded as the world’s most efficient capital market. The majority of our U.S. large‑cap composites beat their benchmarks over all relevant time periods. Again, a long‑term mindset was rewarded as average active success rates for our large-, mid-, and small-cap managers all increased over time.

Our Approach to Strategic Investing

We attribute our success primarily to careful stock selection and in‑depth fundamental research conducted by our long‑tenured investment team.

We go out into the field to get the answers we need. That means that prior to the pandemic, over 530 of our investment professionals saw firsthand how the companies we invested in were performing, in order to make skilled judgments about how they thought they’d perform in the future. During the pandemic, these research activities are being conducted virtually.³

Experience has been a critical component of our success as well. Our skilled portfolio managers have deep experience—an average of 22 years in the industry and 16 years with T. Rowe Price, as of December 31, 2021.

Independent academic research supports our approach: Active equity managers, as a group, have been able to trade profitably, before costs, in part because they are able to forecast earnings‑related fundamentals.⁴

While stable, long‑tenured management teams tend to hold less risky portfolios.⁵

Our own study shows that skilled management can help navigate challenging market conditions.

Look to the Long Term

We don’t wait for change; we seek to get ahead of change for our clients. Our people have the conviction to think independently but act collaboratively. This means we’re able to respond quickly to take advantage of short‑term market fluctuations, or we can also choose to hold tight.

Active Success Rates

The active success rate records the percentage of times a composite beat its designated benchmark, net of fees and trading costs, over a specified time period (say, 10 years). Think of this as a measure of how often a client might look at his or her regular performance reports and find that a composite has outperformed for that time period.

We’ve defined a positive active success rate as a composite beating the performance of its designated benchmark in more than half of the periods measured.

FOR INVESTMENT PROFESSIONALS ONLY. NOT FOR FURTHER DISTRIBUTION.