HEGD vs TACU

HEGDCSwan Hedged Equity US Large Cap ETF

TACUAT. Rowe Price Active Core U.S. Equity ETF

In short

HEGD Always invested, always hedged: HEGD owns S&P 500 exposure with long-dated puts sitting under it at all times, funded partly by selling shorter options. Standing coverage, not a seasonal reset, for 0.87% a year.

TACU T. Rowe Price's quant-plus-fundamental take on core large-cap U.S. stock, benchmarked to the Russell 1000. Gross fee 0.14%, fully waived to zero through January 30, 2027.

Stated mandate

HEGD The Fund seeks long-term capital appreciation while reducing overall market risk through a hedged U.S. large-cap equity strategy.

TACU The fund seeks long-term capital growth through a primarily U.S. equity portfolio. It combines quantitative models with fundamental, bottom-up analysis and seeks excess returns relative to the Russell 1000 Index.

Why people hold it

• HEGD No outcome period to track. The put hedge stays on and gets rolled by the managers, so there is no annual reset date or day-one entry math like buffer funds ask of you.swanglobalinvestments.comswanglobalinvestments.com 2
• The dampening shows up in the data: one of the lower-risk profiles among actively managed US large-cap ETFs, which is the whole point of paying for a hedge.
• Not a 2020 invention. Randy Swan has run this defined-risk approach since 1997; the ETF wrapper arrived in 2020 with the equity sleeve in plain S&P 500 index ETFs.sec.govswanglobalinvestments.com

• TACU Fee fully waived: 0.14% gross, zero net through January 30, 2027. That sits below every top-scoring peer in the category, including DFAU at 0.12% with no waiver.troweprice.com
• Quant models feed bottom-up stock picking with tilts to profitability, quality and value, chasing excess return over the Russell 1000 while holding tracking error tight.troweprice.com
• Several hundred large-cap names, so no single position runs the show. One of the stronger profiles in a crowded active U.S. equity field.troweprice.com

Worth knowing

• HEGD 0.87% a year, no waiver trimming it, sits above the typical active US large-cap fee. Hedged-equity peer JHDG runs 0.49% net of a waiver through July 31, 2027.
• Hedges cost money. Swan's own shareholder reports are blunt that the fund is unlikely to capture a full up market, since the puts drag when stocks climb.sec.govsec.gov 2
• Income is incidental: distributions are annual. And you own a short list of ETFs and options rather than hundreds of individual stocks.

• TACU Launched in December 2025, so the live record is short and the risk read rests on limited history.
• Still a small fund that trades lightly, which can mean wider spreads than the category's giants.
• Distributions are annual at most, with no declared income target. This is a growth mandate, not a cash-flow one.

Full HEGD profile⁠

Full TACU profile⁠