T. Rowe Price has spent nearly 90 years building a reputation as a stalwart in wealth management and investment products. That work has been rewarded with $1.6 trillion in investor assets—much of which rests in the firm’s skillfully managed funds.
The keyword there is “managed.”
T. Rowe Price stands apart from many of its competitors because of its continued commitment and dedication to a human-centric approach to investing. While fund firms like Vanguard and BlackRock have aggressively built up product lineups controlled by rules-based indexes, the vast majority of T. Rowe Price’s offerings continue to offer portfolios hand-picked by human managers and analysis teams—just like they have been for decades.
If you’re not sure where to get started, I’m here to help. Read on as I explore some of the best T. Rowe Price mutual funds—a short list of core holdings that stand out for their strategic excellence and sound managerial judgment.
Disclaimer: This article does not constitute individualized investment advice. These securities appear for your consideration and not as personalized investment recommendations. Act at your own discretion.
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Why T. Rowe Price?
Thomas Rowe Price, Jr., founded his namesake company in 1937 as a wealth management firm. The firm launched its first mutual fund in 1950—74 years later, the company had exploded into a financial giant commanding well more than $1 trillion in assets, boasting nearly 8,000 associates worldwide, and offering more than 150 funds here in the U.S. alone.
That growth has come largely on the back of stellar managers—stars like former T. Rowe Price Health Sciences head Kris Jenner and current T. Rowe Price Capital Appreciation Manager David Giroux. But it’s also worth noting that while T. Rowe isn’t really known for skinflint fees, its expenses tend to be quite competitive, helping to attract investor money, too.
A pair of stats help tell the tale:
- More than 90% of its Investor-class funds have expense ratios below their Lipper averages.
- More than 70% of T. Rowe funds with a minimum 10-year track record beat their Lipper average for the period.
In short, T. Rowe offers productive, cost-effective investment products across numerous core and satellite strategies. And it does so while keeping human managers front and center.
How Were the Best T. Rowe Price Funds Selected?
T. Rowe Price boasts more than 150 mutual funds across a number of strategies—stock, bond, allocation, target-date, and more. That’s many, many more than any one investor would ever need, but given their generally high overall quality, whittling it down to a few select choices isn’t exactly easy.
I’ve started with a quality screen, including only T. Rowe funds that have earned the top Morningstar Medalist rating of Gold. Whereas Morningstar’s Star ratings are based upon past performance data, Morningstar Medalist ratings are a forward-looking analytical view of a fund. Per Morningstar:
“For actively managed funds, the top three ratings of Gold, Silver, and Bronze all indicate that our analysts expect the rated investment vehicle to produce positive alpha relative to its Morningstar Category index over the long term, meaning a period of at least five years. For passive strategies, the same ratings indicate that we expect the fund to deliver alpha relative to its Morningstar Category index that is above the lesser of the category median or zero over the long term.”
A Medalist rating doesn’t mean Morningstar is necessarily bullish on the underlying asset class or categorization. It’s merely an expression of confidence in the fund compared to its peers.
Unlike some of the other big-name fund providers, T. Rowe Price hasn’t made a name for itself by pushing fees to the floor. So I’ve limited the list to T. Rowe mutual funds with costs that are at least considered average within their category, if not below average.
From the remaining universe of several dozen funds, I selected a range of products that address various core portfolio goals, have good-to-great track records, and are generally accessible to most investors (reasonable investment minimums, can be bought in most accounts).
Related: 13 Dividend Kings for Royally Resilient Income
The Best T. Rowe Price Mutual Funds to Buy
Below are seven great T. Rowe Price funds best suited as core portfolio holdings.
All of the T. Rowe Price funds listed here have a $2,500 minimum initial investment unless otherwise indicated (after that, additional purchase minimums are just $100) and are open to new investors.
If you purchase these funds within an IRA, you can typically do so at smaller minimums, often just $1,000. And if any of these T. Rowe Price funds are available in your 401(k), you can buy them with no investment minimum.
Also worth noting: Every one of these funds is actively managed. While T. Rowe does have a solid lineup of index funds, managed funds earn an overwhelming majority of the firm’s Morningstar Gold Medalist ratings.
In no particular order …
1. T. Rowe Price All-Cap Opportunities Fund
- Style: U.S. all-cap growth stock
- Assets under management: $15.0 billion
- Dividend yield: 0.1%
- Expense ratio: 0.79%, or $7.90 per year for every $1,000 invested
I’d normally start this list with either an S&P 500 index fund or a standard U.S. large-cap blend fund that would act as a portfolio core.
However, no T. Rowe Price fund meeting that description made the cut … so let’s jump right to the fun stuff!
T. Rowe Price All-Cap Opportunities Fund (PRWAX) is a growth-stock fund that doesn’t discriminate by size—it’s happy to hold small-, mid-, and large-cap stocks as long as they exhibit the qualities desired by manager Justin White, who has been with the fund since 2016. Those traits include earnings growth beyond the average of the Russell 3000 Index, favorable company fundamentals, effective management, and reasonable stock valuations.
Well, PRWAX might be open to companies of all sizes, but it clearly has favorites—fully three-quarters of assets are invested in large-cap stocks, with another 18% in mids and the remainder in smalls. Nothing odd there. White is content to hold just about 100 or so stocks, and with about $15 billion to work with, he wouldn’t want to move the market in smaller companies by funnelling too much of his assets.
And, in fact, top holdings give us plenty of what we’d see out of a typical large-cap fund—Microsoft (MSFT), Apple (AAPL), Nvidia (NVDA), and other “Magnificent 7” stocks all feature prominently in the portfolio. However, while technology earns the greatest weight at 30%, that’s actually about 10 to 15 percentage points less than what you see out of similarly built funds! Still, the remaining assets are heavily tilted toward cyclical sectors, while defensive areas like staples and utilities have low-single-digit weights.
“T. Rowe Price All-Cap Opportunities is a standout large-growth offering featuring a precocious portfolio manager who shines while executing a flexible investment mandate,” says Adam Sabban, senior analyst at Morningstar, which gives T. Rowe a Gold Medalist rating. “Because of White’s willingness to swiftly rearrange the portfolio as markets evolve, this offering may stand out more when markets exhibit a compressed cyclical pattern. But it has what it takes to stand out in a competitive peer group over the long term.”
PRWAX is no index fund, and it’s not priced like one—though at 0.79% annually, it’s right at the large-cap category average. But it has beaten the category average over all medium- and long-term time periods, and is in the top 10% of funds over the trailing 10 and 15 years. And that’s plenty good enough to land All-Cap Opportunities on our list of the best T. Rowe Price funds you can buy.
Want to learn more about PRWAX? Check out the T. Rowe Price provider site.
Do you want to get serious about saving and planning for retirement? Sign up for Retire With Riley, Young and the Invested’s free retirement planning newsletter.
Related: The 10 Best Fidelity Funds to Buy
2. T. Rowe Price Large-Cap Value Fund
- Style: U.S. large-cap value stock
- Assets under management: $3.5 billion
- Dividend yield: 1.7%
- Expense ratio: 0.70%, or $7.00 per year for every $1,000 invested*
Next up is the T. Rowe Price Large-Cap Value Fund (TRLUX), which sits somewhat opposite of the growthy PRWAX.
I say “somewhat” opposite because the growth and value factors are often pitted against one another as if they’re conflicting ideologies. They’re not. You can indeed have value-priced growth. There’s even a name for it: growth at a reasonable price, or GARP. That said, in many cases, growth stocks carry high valuations, and value stocks have more modest fundamental growth potential, and thus, growth and value will eternally be locked in a stock market Spy vs. Spy.
But I digress.
T. Rowe Price Large-Cap Value Co-Managers John Linehan and Gabriel Solomon are tasked with targeting large-cap companies that feature one or more of several value traits, including:
- Low price-to-earnings (P/E), price-to-sales (P/S), price-to-book (P/S), or price-to-cash flow (P/CF) relative to the market, a company’s peers, or the company’s own historical valuations
- Low stock price relative to the company’s underlying asset value or intrinsic value
- A sound balance sheet and other financial fundamentals
- Companies that could benefit from restructuring activities (that would in theory “unlock” value)
While TRLUX is a large-cap value stock fund, its median market cap is significantly smaller than other funds in its category. At the moment, it’s heaviest in financials, such as Wells Fargo (WFC), Bank of America (BAC), and Charles Schwab (SCHW), which account for roughly a quarter of assets. It also has double-digit weights in industrials and health care. And while the portfolio is predominantly U.S.-based, it’s not entirely, with about 5% of holdings in international firms.
The value tilt also explains a moderately better-than-average yield.
One noteworthy comment from Morningstar on its Gold Medalist rating for T. Rowe Price Large-Cap Value: “At least one member of the team has invested $1 million or more of their own capital in the fund, which helps align their interests with the strategy’s investors. To be clear: Fund managers virtually always have investors’ best interests in mind, but there’s some added confidence and comfort when a manager actually has real skin in the game.
* 0.82% gross expense ratio is reduced with a 0.12% fee waiver until at least April 30, 2026.
Want to learn more about TRLUX? Check out the T. Rowe Price provider site.
Related: The 9 Best Schwab Funds to Buy
3. T. Rowe Price Dividend Growth Fund
- Style: U.S. large-cap dividend-growth stock
- Assets under management: $24.7 billion
- Dividend yield: 1.0%
- Expense ratio: 0.64%, or $6.40 per year for every $1,000 invested
If you see a fund with “dividend” in its name and assume it’s trying to deliver a superior dividend yield, the odds say you’ll be right more often than you’ll be wrong. But that’s not the case with T. Rowe Price Dividend Growth Fund (PRDGX).
Indeed, it’s not even the point.
Dividend-growth funds typically aim to own companies that regularly improve their payouts over time. This accomplishes a couple of things. For one, while it might not score you high current yield, it can generate a higher “yield on cost” down the road. Yield on cost is what you’re actually earning based on the price at which you bought the stock. (Example: A $100 stock paying $1 in annual dividends yields 1%. But because you bought the stock at $50, your yield on cost is 2%.)
Also, dividend-growth companies tend to be high-quality companies. After all, you can’t sustainably increase how much cash you’re shelling out to shareholders if you’re unable to turn a profit—you need strong financials and excellent cash flows. So dividend growth is often considered a quality screen of sorts that ensures the fund owns a higher grade of company.
That’s what you get with PRDGX. “Manager Tom Huber focuses on financially healthy companies that can sustain above-average payout growth as he believes dividend growers offer outperformance with lower volatility,” says Morningstar Analyst Stephen Welch. The fund’s roughly 100-stock portfolio, which is almost entirely made up of U.S. stocks, is full of serial dividend raisers like Visa (V) and Chubb (CB).
Specifically, though, Huber is tasked with building a portfolio of companies “that have a strong track record of paying dividends or that are expected to increase their dividends over time.” I emphasized “or” because it’s … well, different.
Many dividend-growth index funds are required, thanks to the rules that govern the index, to own companies that have improved their payouts without interruption for some set period of time. That’s not the case with T. Rowe Price Dividend Growth. Huber has full discretion here. For instance, holding Ross Stores actually suspended its distribution for a few quarters in 2020—and was booted from the Dividend Aristocrats as a result. (However, it resumed payouts in 2021 at its previous level and has raised each year since then, so it’s certainly a dividend grower once more.)
The actively managed T. Rowe Price Dividend Growth ETF (TDVG) offers similar exposure and charges 0.50% annually.
Want to learn more about PRDGX? Check out the T. Rowe Price provider site.
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4. T. Rowe Price Global Stock Fund
- Style: Global large-cap growth stock
- Assets under management: $7.1 billion
- Dividend yield: 0.1%
- Expense ratio: 0.80%, or $8.00 per year for every $1,000 invested
The U.S. has been one of the world’s most fruitful stock markets for decades. So if you believe in the American economy’s ability to keep growing, naturally, you should continue to invest the lion’s share of your money in U.S. assets.
Still, many advisors will tell you it’s important to diversify geographically, too—a little hedging of bets, sure, but also, there are hundreds of high-achieving companies scattered across the globe, and it makes sense to have a little exposure to those firms, too.
You can get the best of both worlds with the T. Rowe Price Global Stock Fund (PRGSX).
An important note about fund terminology. The word “international” in a fund’s name implies its holdings come from anywhere but America. However, the word “global” implies that the fund holds both U.S. and international stocks. PRGSX is the latter, offering a roughly 65% domestic/35% foreign split.
Manager David Eiswert and his team of global analysts home in on companies capable of generating above-average earnings growth over time. “Eiswert filters the global equity universe through his investment framework, which emphasizes investing in quality companies at a time when fundamentals are poised to inflect higher, but without paying too much,” says Morningstar Analyst Adam Sabban. Currently, Global Stock’s team has locked in on about 95 holdings—overwhelmingly large-cap in nature, and with a clear bent toward growth stocks.
The international portion of the portfolio is most heavily tilted toward Japan, which still only commands around 6% of assets. The U.K., Germany, and Taiwan all sit around 4% to 5% apiece. The top 10 holdings are thick in U.S. stocks, but Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM), Unilever (UL), and London Stock Exchange Group (LNSTY) make the cut for the away team.
Even at its worst, PRGSX still tends to top the category average. But when it shines—which it does over most medium- and long-term time frames—it’s not just one of the best T. Rowe Price mutual funds you can buy, but one of the best funds period.
Want to learn more about PRGSX? Check out the T. Rowe Price provider site.
Do you want to get serious about saving and planning for retirement? Sign up for Retire With Riley, Young and the Invested’s free retirement planning newsletter.
Related: The 9 Best Fidelity Index Funds to Buy
5. T. Rowe Price Short Duration Income Fund
- Style: Short-term bond
- Assets under management: $67.2 million
- SEC yield: 4.9%*
- Expense ratio: 0.40%, or $4.00 per year for every $1,000 invested**
Most investors will want some exposure to bonds—debt issued by governments, companies, and other entities that pay interest to bondholders. But how much will largely depend on your age.
Bonds tend to be much less volatile than stocks, for better or worse; it limits downside, yes, but it also limits upside. Instead, most of the return from bonds comes from the steady stream of interest income they produce. They’re not great for generating wealth, which is your prime concern when you’re younger, but they’re outstanding for protecting wealth, which becomes increasingly pivotal as you age.
But it’s tough to go out and buy, say, a single bond. Data and research on individual issues is much thinner than it is for publicly traded stocks, plus, some bonds have minimum investments in the tens of thousands of dollars. So, your best (and most economical) bet is to buy a bond fund, which can provide you with access to hundreds if not thousands of bonds.
T. Rowe Price Short Duration Income Fund (TSDLX) is a particularly defensive bond fund. Portfolio co-managers Cheryl Mickel and Steven Kohelnstein invest in a variety of short-duration fixed-income issues, including corporate bonds, asset-backed securities (ABSes), U.S. Treasury bonds, mortgage-backed securities (MBSes), commercial MBSes (CMBSes), and other government-related debt. It’s largely U.S.-centric, but not entirely—a little less than 20% of assets are invested in issues from the U.K., South Korea, Indonesia and a handful of other countries.
Maturities are overwhelmingly on the short side, with some 95% of bonds expiring in five years or less. That contributes to an extremely low duration (a measure of interest-rate risk). Right now, TSDLX’s average duration is a lean 1.9 years, implying that a 1-percentage-point hike in interest rates would result in a short-term loss of just 1.9%—but conversely, a 1-percentage-point decline in rates would result in a modest gain for the fund.
A long way of saying: TSDLX is about limiting volatility and collecting income. Indeed, the income, at nearly 5% right now, is substantial for such relatively low risk.
* SEC yield reflects the interest earned across the most recent 30-day period. This is a standard measure for funds holding bonds and preferred stocks.
** 1.00% gross expense ratio is reduced with a 0.60% fee waiver until at least Sept. 30, 2025.
Want to learn more about TSDLX? Check out the T. Rowe Price provider site.
Related: The 7 Best Schwab Index Funds to Buy
6. T. Rowe Price Global Allocation Fund
- Style: Global allocation
- Assets under management: $812.3 million
- Dividend yield: 2.5%
- Expense ratio: 1.01%, or $10.10 per year for every $1,000 invested*
If you want a simpler portfolio solution that covers multiple assets in a single fund, you might want to look for an “allocation fund,” aka “balanced fund,” which invests in both stocks and bonds (and occasionally additional assets as well).
These funds are often called a “portfolio in a can,” and if any fund deserves the moniker, it’s T. Rowe Price Global Allocation Fund (RPGAX).
RPGAX holds not just stocks and bonds, but also alternative investments, aiming for a respective 60/30/10 blend of those assets. But that doesn’t really give you an idea of just how much stuff it really holds.
It holds U.S., developed-market and emerging-market stocks across all 11 sectors. It holds U.S. and international debt, including Treasuries, inflation-indexed Treasury bonds, investment-grade corporates, and junk debt. And it holds all these through both individual issues and other mutual funds. RPGAX also holds a hedge fund-of-funds, a multi-strategy fund, and even a few currencies.
“Many of the underlying managers steer impressive strategies,” says Morningstar Analyst Thomas De Fauw. “And while the portfolio includes 20-plus strategies, the niche holdings serve a purpose. For example, T. Rowe Price European Stock and T. Rowe Price Japan offer more exposure to smaller firms and thus more diversification than the firm’s broad non-US equity funds.”
Global Allocation Co-Manager Charles Shriver has been on board since inception in 2013, while Toby Thompson and Christina Noonan are newer additions. Together, along with a multi-asset team of more than 70 members, they have guided RPGAX to solid performance, outperforming both their category average and benchmark index in just about every single meaningful time period.
* 1.15% gross expense ratio is reduced with a 0.14% fee waiver until at least Feb. 28, 2026.
Want to learn more about RPGAX? Check out the T. Rowe Price provider site.
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7. T. Rowe Price Capital Appreciation
- Style: Moderate allocation
- Assets under management: $66.3 billion
- Dividend yield: 2.1%
- Expense ratio: 0.71%, or $7.10 per year for every $1,000 invested*
T. Rowe Price Capital Appreciation (PRWCX) comes at the tail end of this list—very much out of order—because of its status. Specifically, PRWCX is closed to most new investors. This is very much an exception to the rules I laid out above. However, I’m still including it among the best mutual funds you can buy both because of its extremely high quality and because this T. Rowe fund still might be available to some investors via select registered investment advisory (RIA) firms.
T. Rowe Price Capital Appreciation is another allocation fund—this one designed to invest at least half its assets in stocks, with the rest socked into various debt securities, including corporate bonds, government debt (Treasuries, MBSes, asset-backed securities), and bank loans. It’s primarily a domestic fund, but it can hold at least a quarter of its assets in foreign equities and debt. PRWCX, which currently holds around 240 securities, places 60% of assets in domestic shares and a little more than 35% in domestic bonds, sprinkling the rest around foreign bonds, foreign stock, preferred stock, convertible securities, and cash.
Morningstar Analyst Jason Kephart calls David Giroux, who has managed the fund since June 2006, “a manager unlike any other.”
“He’s displayed an innate ability to opportunistically invest across both equities and bonds, capturing pockets of value through strong stock selection and impressively timed shifts between stock and bond exposure,” Kephart says. “His execution of this strategy’s nimble, contrarian approach has delivered top-notch returns for its investors.”
Indeed, during his tenure, Giroux has beaten all of his category peers on both an absolute and risk-adjusted basis. He has also bested all peers over the trailing 10-year period, and has beaten 95% over the trailing three and five years.
T. Rowe Price Capital Appreciation’s only sticking point is a critical one—availability. It’s largely closed, so most of us can’t just log into our browsers and buy this fund. But again, if your money is managed through certain RIAs, you might actually be able to buy shares of this gem … and if you find you can, you should.
* 0.73% gross expense ratio is reduced with a 0.02% fee waiver until at least Feb. 28, 2027.
Want to learn more about PRWCX? Check out the T. Rowe Price provider site.
