Which Is a Better Investment, Principal Financial Group Inc or T Rowe Price Group Inc Stock?

By AAII Staff
July 20, 2026
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Sifting through countless of stocks in the Capital Markets industry can be tedious, and sometimes two stocks are just too similar to judge which is the better investment. If you’re on the fence about investing in T. Rowe Price Group, Inc., Principal Financial Group or Inc. because you’re not sure how they measure up, it’s important to compare them on a few factors before making your decision.

Read on to learn how T. Rowe Price Group, Inc., Principal Financial Group and Inc. compare based on key financial metrics to determine which better meets your investment needs.

About T. Rowe Price Group, Inc., Principal Financial Group and Inc.

T. Rowe Price Group, Inc. is a publicly owned investment manager. The firm provides its services to individuals, institutional investors, retirement plans, financial intermediaries, and institutions. It launches and manages equity and fixed income mutual funds. The firm invests in the public equity and fixed income markets across the globe. It employs fundamental and quantitative analysis with a bottom-up approach. The firm utilizes in-house and external research to make its investments. It employs socially responsible investing with a focus on environmental, social, and governance issues. It makes investment in late-stage venture capital transactions and usually invests between $3 million and $5 million. The firm was previously known as T. Rowe Group, Inc. and T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc. T. Rowe Price Group, Inc. was founded in 1937 and is based in Baltimore, Maryland, with additional offices in North America, Europe, Asia, Australia.

Principal Financial Group, Inc. provides retirement, asset management, and insurance products and services to businesses, individuals, and institutional clients worldwide. The company operates through Retirement and Income Solutions, Principal Asset Management, and Benefits and Protection segments. The Retirement and Income Solutions segment provides retirement, and related financial products and services. This segment offers products and services for defined contribution plans, including 401(k) and 403(b) plans, defined benefit plans, nonqualified executive benefit plans, employee stock ownership plans, equity compensation, and pension risk transfer services; individual retirement accounts; investment only products; and mutual funds, individual variable annuities, registered index-linked annuities, and bank products, as well as trust and custody services. The Principal Asset Management segment provides equity, fixed income, real estate, and other alternative investments, as well as fund offerings. This segment also offers pension accumulation products and services, mutual funds, asset management, income annuities, and life insurance accumulation products, as well as voluntary savings plans. The Benefits and Protection segment provides specialty benefits, such as specialty benefits group dental and vision insurance, group life and other insurance, and group and individual disability insurance, as well as administers group dental, disability, and vision benefits; and individual life insurance products comprising universal, variable universal, indexed universal, and term life insurance products. This segment serves insurance solutions for small and medium-sized businesses and their owners, as well as employees. The company was founded in 1879 and is based in Des Moines, Iowa.

Latest Capital Markets and T. Rowe Price Group, Inc., Principal Financial Group, Inc. Stock News

As of July 17, 2026, T. Rowe Price Group, Inc. had a $25.1 billion market capitalization, compared to the Capital Markets median of $2.9 million. T. Rowe Price Group, Inc.’s stock is up 13.8% in 2026, up 2.5% in the previous five trading days and up 13.88% in the past year.

Currently, T. Rowe Price Group, Inc.’s price-earnings ratio is 12.6. T. Rowe Price Group, Inc.’s trailing 12-month revenue is $7.4 billion with a 28.3% net profit margin. Year-over-year quarterly sales growth most recently was 5.3%. Analysts expect adjusted earnings to reach $10.170 per share for the current fiscal year. T. Rowe Price Group, Inc. currently has a 4.4% dividend yield.

As of July 17, 2026, Principal Financial Group, Inc. had a $24.6 billion market cap, putting it in the 88th percentile of all stocks. Principal Financial Group, Inc.’s stock is up 27% in 2026, down 1.4% in the previous five trading days and up 42.76% in the past year.

Currently, Principal Financial Group, Inc.’s price-earnings ratio is 16.3. Principal Financial Group, Inc.’s trailing 12-month revenue is $15.5 billion with a 10.1% net profit margin. Year-over-year quarterly sales growth most recently was -4.5%. Analysts expect adjusted earnings to reach $9.401 per share for the current fiscal year. Principal Financial Group, Inc. currently has a 2.9% dividend yield.

How We Compare T. Rowe Price Group, Inc., Principal Financial Group and Inc. Stock Grades

Stock evaluation requires access to huge amounts of data and the knowledge and time to sift through it all, make sense of financial ratios, read income statements and analyze recent stock movements. AAII created A+ Investor, a robust data suite that condenses data research in an actionable and customizable way suitable for investors of all knowledge levels, to help investors streamline and work through such data.

AAII’s proprietary stock grades come with A+ Investor. These offer intuitive A‐F grades for each of five key investing factors: value, growth, momentum, earnings estimate revisions and quality. Here, we’ll take a closer look at T. Rowe Price Group, Inc., Principal Financial Group and Inc.’s stock grades to see how they measure up against one another.

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T. Rowe Price Group, Inc., Principal Financial Group and Inc. Stock Value Grades

Company Ticker Value
T. Rowe Price Group, Inc. TROW C
Principal Financial Group, Inc. PFG B

Successful stock investing involves buying low and selling high, so stock valuation is an important consideration for stock selection.

Buying stocks that are going to go up typically means buying stocks that are undervalued in the first place, although momentum investors may argue that point.

AAII’s A+ Investor Value Grade derives from a stock’s value score. The Value Score is the percentile rank of the average of the percentile ranks of the price-to-sales ratio, price-earnings ratio, enterprise-value-to-EBITDA (EV/EBITDA) ratio, shareholder yield, price-to-book-value ratio and price-to-free-cash-flow ratio. The score is variable, meaning it can consider all six ratios or, should any of the six ratios not be valid, the remaining ratios that are valid. To be assigned a Value Score, stocks must have a valid (non-null) ratio and corresponding ranking for at least two of the six valuation ratios.

Stocks with a Value Score from 81 to 100 are considered deep value, those with a score between 61 and 80 are a good value and so on.

T. Rowe Price Group, Inc. has a Value Score of 58, which is Average. Principal Financial Group, Inc. has a Value Score of 78, which is Value.

The Value Stock Winner: Principal Financial Group, Inc.

As you can clearly see from the Value Grade breakdown above, Principal Financial Group, Inc. is considered to have better value than T. Rowe Price Group, Inc.. For investors who focus solely on a company’s valuation, Principal Financial Group, Inc. could be a good stock to add to their portfolio. However, it’s important for investors to analyze multiple factors based on a wide range of metrics before deciding whether to buy.

T. Rowe Price Group, Inc., Principal Financial Group and Inc. Growth Grades

Company Ticker Growth
T. Rowe Price Group, Inc. TROW C
Principal Financial Group, Inc. PFG C

The foundation of growth investing is seeking out stocks of companies exhibiting strong, consistent and prolonged growth that is expected to continue into the future.

In order to compute the growth score and assign it a letter grade, the percentile ranks for each of three components‐consistency of annual sales growth, five-year sales growth rankings adjusted for extreme levels, and consistency of positive annual cash from operations‐must be determined. These three rank figures are added together, and the sum is ranked against the entire stock universe to arrive at a company’s Growth Score to create an equal distribution of grades.

The companies in the bottom 20% of the stock universe receive Growth Grades of F, considered to be very weak, while those in the top 20% receive A grades, which are considered very strong.

T. Rowe Price Group, Inc. has a Growth Score of 56, which is Average. Principal Financial Group, Inc. has a Growth Score of 43, which is Average.

The Growth Stock Winner: No Clear Winner

Neither T. Rowe Price Group, Inc., Principal Financial Group or Inc. has a high enough Growth Grade to be considered a “winner.” Investors who are considering these companies should do additional due diligence and research to see if either could be a good addition to their portfolios. It’s important to look at a wide range of financial metrics in order to determine if T. Rowe Price Group, Inc., Principal Financial Group or Inc. is the better investment when it comes to sustainable growth.

T. Rowe Price Group, Inc., Principal Financial Group and Inc.’s Momentum Grades

Company Ticker Momentum
T. Rowe Price Group, Inc. TROW B
Principal Financial Group, Inc. PFG B

Momentum grades help to uncover stocks experiencing anomalously high rates of return; research finds that stocks with high relative levels of momentum tend to outperform, whereas those with low levels of momentum tend to continue underperforming. Momentum is based on the price change of a stock over a specified period relative to all other stocks.

Typically, AAII looks at the weighted relative strength over the trailing four quarters. The weighted four-quarter relative strength rank is the relative price change for each of the past four quarters. The most recent quarterly price change is given a weight of 40% and each of the three previous quarters are given a weighting of 20%.

T. Rowe Price Group, Inc. has a Momentum Score of 63, which is Strong. Principal Financial Group, Inc. has a Momentum Score of 76, which is Strong.

The Momentum Grade Winner: It’s a Tie!

Looking at the Momentum Grade breakdown above, both T. Rowe Price Group, Inc., Principal Financial Group and Inc. have a grade of B. For those who focus solely on a company’s momentum, further research will need to be conducted into both companies to see if they fit your individual needs as an investor.

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Other T. Rowe Price Group, Inc., Principal Financial Group and Inc. Grades

In addition to Growth, Momentum and Value, A+ Investor also provides grades for Estimate Revisions and Quality.

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Earnings estimate revisions scores take into account the magnitude of a company’s earnings surprise in its last two reported fiscal quarters. Often, surprises beget further surprises‐or at least continued sales growth (the exact opposite is generally true, too).

AAII’s A+ Investor Quality Grade comes from the ranking of key metrics. Specifically, the quality grade is the percentile rank of the composite of return on assets (ROA), return on invested capital (ROIC), gross profit relative to assets, buyback yield, change in total liabilities to assets, accruals, Z double prime bankruptcy risk (Z) score and F-Score.

These 2 key factors, when combined with the above, provide a holistic view into a particular stock. Further, by joining A+ Investor you can see whether T. Rowe Price Group, Inc., Principal Financial Group and Inc. pass any of our 60+ stock screens that have outperformed the market since their creation.

So, Which Is the Better Investment, T. Rowe Price Group, Inc., Principal Financial Group or Inc. Stock?

Overall, T. Rowe Price Group, Inc. stock has a Value Score of 58, Growth Score of 56 and Momentum Score of 63.

Principal Financial Group, Inc. stock has a Value Score of 78, Growth Score of 43 and Momentum Score of 76.

Comparing T. Rowe Price Group, Inc., Principal Financial Group and Inc.’s grades, scores and metrics can act as a solid basis to determine whether they may be a good investment or not. You’ll also want to look at your portfolio’s asset allocation as well as your risk tolerance and financial goals to see if either of these stocks would make a good fit for you. AAII can help you figure out which investments align with your individual needs and preferences.

Investors are encouraged to do their own due diligence and research. In this way, individuals can effectively become managers of their own assets‐without having to rely on others for financial independence. You can count on AAII for timeless articles on financial planning and stock-picking, unbiased research and actionable analysis.

A+ Investor adds to our qualitative teaching with a powerful data suite to help you whittle down investment choices to find stocks, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) or mutual funds that meet your needs.

Learn More About A+ Investor

AAII Disclaimer

We make no representations or warranties that any investor will, or is likely to, achieve profits similar to those shown, because past, hypothetical or simulated performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. Before making an investment decision, you should consider your circumstances and whether the information on our content is applicable to your situation. This information was prepared in good faith, and we accept no liability for any errors or omissions. The full disclaimer can be read here.



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