T. Rowe Price is expanding its ETF roster with two new offerings designed to blend active management with the cost efficiency investors love about passive funds. The firm just launched the T. Rowe Price Active Core U.S. Equity ETF (TACU) and the Active Core International Equity ETF (TACN), both sweetened with a 13-month fee waiver to get investors in the door.

Here's the breakdown: TACU focuses on U.S. large-cap stocks and holds between 550 and 650 positions. Meanwhile, TACN takes the international route with a portfolio of roughly 400 to 500 stocks. Both funds aim to give investors access to T. Rowe Price's research-driven investment approach while keeping risk management tight and costs reasonable.

Tim Coyne, Global Head of ETFs at T. Rowe Price, explained that these active core ETFs essentially offer investors the best of both worlds—the broad diversification of passive index funds combined with the potential upside of active strategies. He emphasized that the fee waiver reflects the firm's confidence in letting investors experience what Active Core strategies can deliver. When the waiver ends on Jan 30, 2027, TACU will charge 0.14% and TACN will carry a 0.20% expense ratio—fees the firm positions as highly competitive in the space.

These two launches bring T. Rowe Price's ETF count to 30 funds total, split between 20 equity ETFs and 10 fixed-income offerings. The star of the lineup remains the T. Rowe Price Capital Appreciation Equity ETF (TCAF), sitting on $6.2 billion in assets under management. Seven of the firm's ETFs have now crossed the $1 billion threshold, signaling growing investor appetite for what T. Rowe Price is serving up.

Active ETFs have been picking up steam lately, offering the flexibility and potential outperformance of active management wrapped in the transparency and tax efficiency of the ETF structure. T. Rowe Price's new Active Core funds are designed to track their benchmarks closely while hunting for moderate outperformance—potentially an attractive option for investors looking to juice their core equity allocations without taking on excessive risk.