Report: Friday, July 31, 2026, before market open
Release / call: 7:00 a.m. / 8:00 a.m. ET
Consensus: Approximately $2.51–$2.53 in adjusted EPS and $1.92 billion of revenue. That compares with adjusted EPS of $2.24 and net revenue of $1.72 billion in Q2 2025. (troweprice.gcs-web.com)
TROW enters earnings with a favorable market backdrop and substantially higher assets under management, but the central debate remains unchanged: Can market appreciation and newer products offset persistent organic outflows and fee-rate compression?
The quarter's headline flow and ending-AUM figures are already known, limiting their ability to surprise. The important new information will be:
A modest EPS beat alone may not be enough. The stock is near $119, trades around 11.5 times forward earnings and has rallied materially since the end of March. Its roughly 4.4% dividend yield and net-cash balance remain supportive, but expectations are higher than they were after Q1. (stockanalysis.com)
TROW finished June with $1.893 trillion of AUM, up 10.7% from $1.710 trillion at March 31 and approximately 13% from June 2025. The increase was primarily market-driven: the firm generated $6.5 billion of Q2 net outflows, meaning market appreciation and income accounted for roughly $190 billion of the sequential AUM increase. (investors.troweprice.com)
| AUM, billions | Mar. 31, 2026 | Apr. 30 | May 31 | Jun. 30 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Equity | $810 | $882 | $919 | $919 |
| Fixed income | 215 | 218 | 221 | 222 |
| Multi-asset | 625 | 665 | 691 | 690 |
| Alternatives | 60 | 60 | 61 | 62 |
| Total | $1,710 | $1,825 | $1,892 | $1,893 |
| Target-date portfolios | 561 | 599 | 623 | 622 |
A rough average of the quarter-start and monthly ending balances is about $1.83 trillion, versus actual average AUM of $1.776 trillion in Q1 and $1.589 trillion in Q2 2025. Actual daily average AUM will differ, but the direction is clear: investment advisory revenue should receive a meaningful sequential and year-over-year lift. (investors.troweprice.com)
Key question: Does the revenue growth match the growth in AUM, or is it diluted by product mix?
Q2 net outflows improved to $6.5 billion, compared with $13.7 billion in Q1 2026 and $14.9 billion in Q2 2025. On opening AUM, Q2 outflows represent an annualized organic decline of roughly 1.5%, substantially better than recent periods. (sec.gov)
The monthly pattern was:
That makes the reported improvement less conclusive than the headline suggests. Both positive months benefited from identifiable large mandates, while April contained several large redemptions.
Investors should focus on the asset-class flow table and management commentary regarding:
A bullish report would show that underlying outflows are narrowing even after adjusting for the large mandates. A bearish report would indicate that the apparent stabilization was largely one-off.
TROW's annualized effective advisory fee rate excluding performance fees fell to 38.4 basis points in Q1, from 40.0 basis points a year earlier and 38.8 basis points in Q4. Management attributed the decline to growth in lower-fee target-date blend products and trust/separate-account vehicles, combined with outflows from higher-fee equity and mutual-fund products. (sec.gov)
That dynamic likely continued in Q2:
The result could be strong advisory-fee growth that nevertheless trails the approximately 15% year-over-year increase suggested by average AUM.
The effective fee rate may be the single most important reported financial metric. A relatively stable rate would create upside to revenue and earnings; another pronounced decline would reinforce concerns that AUM growth is becoming less valuable economically.
Q1 adjusted operating expenses excluding carried-interest compensation increased only 1% year over year, helped by restructuring, lower headcount and vendor-sourcing initiatives. TROW had reduced headcount by 7.1% year over year as of March 31, although technology costs increased nearly 13%. (sec.gov)
Management has guided to 3%–6% growth in 2026 adjusted expenses excluding carried-interest compensation, so spending should accelerate after the unusually soft Q1 comparison. Higher markets also increase distribution costs and certain compensation items.
Investors should watch for:
Given the large AUM rebound, TROW should produce operating leverage even with a sequential expense increase. Failure to do so would be disappointing.
At March 31, only 23% of U.S. fund AUM outperformed Morningstar medians over one year, versus 71% over three years and 78% over ten years. Equity and multi-asset strategies were particularly weak over one year, while fixed income remained strong. (investors.troweprice.com)
The market broadening discussed by management could help TROW's research-driven active strategies, but any benefit to client flows will arrive with a lag. Look for updated performance statistics, particularly in:
Improved short-term performance would support the stabilization thesis. Continued weakness would make sustained positive organic growth harder to achieve.
At the Q1 call, management reported more than $25 billion of ETF AUM, 32 ETFs and $2.8 billion of Q1 ETF net inflows. Updated Q2 ETF and SMA figures will be useful evidence of whether TROW is gaining clients rather than merely converting existing mutual-fund assets.
Post-quarter developments include the launch of an actively managed multi-token crypto product and, on July 27, the T. Rowe Price Goldman Sachs Private Markets Fund, an interval fund combining TROW, Goldman Sachs Asset Management and OHA capabilities. These launches will not materially affect Q2 earnings but are important to the longer-term effort to diversify vehicles and expand into private markets and wealth distribution. (investors.troweprice.com)
For OHA, investors should listen for fundraising, deployment, credit performance and retail redemption trends. Alternatives fee-basis AUM rose only modestly to $62 billion in Q2, while carried-interest accruals remain a potentially volatile contributor to reported and adjusted results.
TROW repurchased approximately $340 million of stock in Q1, reducing period-end shares outstanding to 214.9 million from 218.6 million at year-end. With substantial cash and investments on the balance sheet, investors will expect continued buybacks—although the stock's higher Q2 price may have reduced management's appetite relative to the purchases made near the March lows. (investors.troweprice.com)
Commentary on buybacks, acquisitions and seed or co-investment commitments could be nearly as relevant as the quarter's EPS.
TROW should report solid year-over-year earnings growth, driven by much higher average AUM, cost actions and a reduced share count. The known $6.5 billion of outflows is also a clear improvement.
However, the quarter is less about whether markets lifted earnings and more about whether the business is becoming structurally healthier. The most consequential signals will be underlying organic flows, the effective fee rate, expense guidance and investment performance. A clean report on those metrics could validate the recent rally; an EPS beat driven mainly by markets or carried interest, without better core flows, would be less compelling.