T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc. recently announced the acquisition of new stake in Metlife Inc (NYSE:MET). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Financial company by 0.84% to 35.58 million shares with purchase of 0.3 million shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 4.73% valued currently at $2.14 billion. In addition, JPMorgan Investment Management, I raised its holdings by 0.5 million to 12.14 million shares. And Geode Capital Management LLC has lifted its position by 0.49% or 57600.0 shares – to 11.78 million shares.
With over 4.45 million Metlife Inc (MET) shares trading Tuesday and a closing price of $62.25 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $276.83 million. The shares have shown a positive half year performance of 20.08% and its price on 11/21/23 lost nearly -0.42%. Currently, there are 779.10M common shares owned by the public and among those 622.09M shares have been available to trade.
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An analysis of what Wall Street brokers have to say about the expected price targets for this stock gives us this picture: 19 analysts who have offered their price forecasts for MET have a consensus price objective of $77.31. The analysts have set the share’s price value over the next 12 months at a high of $86.00 and a low of $69.40. The average price target is 19.48% above its recent price level and an upside to the estimated low will see the stock gain 10.3% over that period. But an upside of 27.62% will see the stock hit the forecast high price target while median target price for the stock is $79.50.
Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 141 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 115 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 864,524 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 26 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 471,105 shares.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in Metlife Inc are Dodge & Cox Stock Fund, Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF, and Vanguard 500 Index Fund. Dodge & Cox Stock Fund owns 38.06 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $2.28 billion. The company bought an additional 0.2 million shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 5.06% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF bought 71902.0 shares to see its total holdings expand to 17.65 million shares valued at over $1.06 billion and representing 2.35% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard 500 Index Fund bought 77350.0 shares to bring its total holdings to over 15.26 million shares at a value of $915.66 million. Vanguard 500 Index Fund now owns shares totaling to 2.03% of the shares outstanding.
Shares of Metlife Inc (NYSE: MET) opened at $62.33, down -$0.18 from a prior closing price of $62.51. However, the script later moved the day high at 62.73, down -0.42%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of -0.26% and 0.84% over the past three months. MET shares are trading -13.98% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance down to -17.55% lower. It has a 12-month low price of $48.95 and touched a high of $77.36 over the same period. MET has an average intraday trading volume of 3.66 million shares. The stock is trading above its simple moving averages at the SMA20, SMA50, and SMA200, as the current price level is off by 3.01%, 0.45%, and 2.91% respectively.
Institutional ownership of Metlife Inc (NYSE: MET) shares accounts for 74.91% of the company’s 779.10M shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 33.20%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 41.61% and 16.59% respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $46.08B and a beta (3y monthly) value of 1.04. The stock’s trailing 12-month PE ratio is 22.89, while the earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at $2.72. The company has a PEG of 1.99 and the debt-to-equity ratio at 0.76. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 1.31% over the week and 1.95% over the month.
Analysts forecast that Metlife Inc (MET) will achieve an EPS of $2.05 for the current quarter, $2.16 for the next quarter and $9.22 for 2024. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is $1.87 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of $2.15. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was $1.55 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to increase by 9.63%, and 22.77% over the next financial year. EPS should grow at an annualized rate of 11.50% over the next five years, compared to -4.29% over the past 5-year period.
If you are looking to buy this stock, then you may note that the average analyst recommendation by 19 brokerage firm advisors rate Metlife Inc (MET) as a “Strong Buy” at a consensus score of 1.79. Specifically, 11 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 7 of the 19 advise that investors “hold,” and 0 rated it as a “Sell.”
Looking at the support for the MET, a number of firms have released research notes about the stock. Barclays stated their Overweight rating for the stock in a research note on November 17, 2023, with the firm’s price target at $71.
