“There has been only one major driving force during the market rise of the past eight years: stock buybacks!”

It’s an incredible thought that the driving force of the bull market in stocks may have been these buybacks. It has important implications for investors.

Since the fund is new, it initially will base payouts on the five-year NAV history of T. Rowe Price Retirement 2020 Fund, a 15-year-old target-date fund that uses the same underlying strategy.

@MSF I see your point, but it's $6.95 to sell an ETF outside the NTF platform, not $50, as shares are treated as stocks for commission purposes. Instead of selling, probably the best strategy would be to find a reasonable substitute in the new list to existing ETF positions and just add to your position with that ETF while holding onto the old one--an annoyance for record keeping admittedly, but you wouldn't have to realize any additional capital gains too soon. I agree there is a bit of marketing shenanigans here, but I also think there are some interesting new options on this list and it is true that costs have declined for a number of broad bread and butter index style SPDR ETFs such as total market, emerging, agg bond, small cap, etc that are now transaction free. I don't see it nearly as negatively as the Financial Buff does.

MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE FUND’S PRINCIPAL INVESTMENT STRATEGIES AND ITS PRINCIPAL RISKS
Consider your investment goals, your time horizon for achieving them, and your tolerance for risk.
The fund seeks to balance the potential capital appreciation of equity securities with the income and relative stability of bonds and fixed income instruments over the long term. The fund’s focus on risk-adjusted returns is intended to reduce the fund’s overall risk profile and volatility relative to that of the broader stock market. In addition, the fund’s ability to seek income opportunities outside the stock market may also aid performance when stocks are declining. While there is no guarantee, spreading investments across different types of assets could reduce the fund’s overall volatility since prices of stocks and bonds may respond differently to changes in economic conditions and interest rate levels. A rise in bond prices, for example, could help offset a fall in stock prices.
The addition of high yield bonds, bank loans, foreign securities, and derivatives provides the opportunity for capital appreciation and higher income and the ability to better adapt to changing market conditions when compared to funds with less flexible investment programs. The fund’s investments in high yield securities may include securities that are unrated but deemed to be below investment grade by T. Rowe Price. In addition, bank loans with floating interest rates and certain other holdings could help to moderate the fund’s price decline when interest rates rise because they may be less sensitive to interest rate movements. As with all funds, the fund’s share price can fall because of weakness in the broad stock or bond markets, a particular industry, or specific holdings.
While high yield corporate bonds are typically issued with a fixed interest rate, bank loans have floating interest rates that reset periodically (typically quarterly or monthly). Bank loans represent amounts borrowed by companies or other entities from banks and other lenders. In many cases, the borrowing companies have significantly more debt than equity and the loans have been issued in connection with recapitalizations, acquisitions, leveraged buyouts, or refinancings. The loans held by the fund may be senior or subordinate obligations of the borrower, and may or may not be secured by collateral. The fund will primarily acquire bank loans as an assignment from another lender who holds a floating rate loan, but the fund has flexibility to also acquire bank loans directly from a lender or through the agent, or as a participation interest in another lender’s floating rate loan or portion thereof.
In addition to investing in a wide array of bonds and other debt instruments, the fund also uses interest rate futures; interest rate, credit default, and currency swaps; and forward currency exchange contracts as part of its principal investment strategies. Interest rate futures and interest rate swaps are typically used to manage the fund’s duration and overall interest rate exposure, but futures may also be used as a tool to help manage significant cash flows into and out of the fund. Currency swaps and forward currency exchange contracts are used to protect the fund’s non-U.S. dollar-denominated holdings from adverse currency movements by hedging the fund’s foreign currency exposure back to the U.S. dollar, as well as to gain exposure to a currency believed to be appreciating in value versus other currencies. Credit default swaps are used to protect against a negative credit event (such as a bankruptcy or downgrade) or an expected decline in the creditworthiness of an issuer, to hedge the portfolio’s overall credit risk, or to efficiently gain exposure to certain sectors or asset classes (such as high yield bonds or bank loans).