MetLife (NYSE:MET) PT Raised to $92.00 at Wells Fargo & Company

MetLife (NYSE:MET) had its price objective increased by Wells Fargo & Company from $86.00 to $92.00 in a research note published on Thursday morning, Benzinga reports. Wells Fargo & Company currently has an overweight rating on the financial services provider’s stock.

Several other brokerages have also weighed in on MET. Morgan Stanley cut their target price on MetLife from $86.00 to $85.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, August 19th. Citigroup lifted their price target on MetLife from $83.00 to $89.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 23rd. Piper Sandler lifted their price target on MetLife from $85.00 to $92.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 2nd. Bank of America cut their price target on MetLife from $99.00 to $96.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, August 1st. Finally, StockNews.com lowered MetLife from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research report on Friday, October 4th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $88.46.

MetLife Stock Up 1.6 %

Shares of MET traded up $1.34 during midday trading on Thursday, hitting $85.37. The company had a trading volume of 160,067 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,336,810. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $76.57 and its 200-day simple moving average is $73.62. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.56, a quick ratio of 0.16 and a current ratio of 0.16. The firm has a market capitalization of $59.79 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.65, a P/E/G ratio of 0.69 and a beta of 1.04. MetLife has a 1 year low of $57.91 and a 1 year high of $85.54.

MetLife (NYSE:MET) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 31st. The financial services provider reported $2.28 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.13 by $0.15. MetLife had a return on equity of 21.41% and a net margin of 4.23%. The business had revenue of $17.82 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $18.57 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $1.94 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 7.2% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that MetLife will post 8.61 EPS for the current year.

MetLife Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, December 16th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, November 5th will be given a dividend of $0.545 per share. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, November 5th. This represents a $2.18 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.55%. MetLife’s payout ratio is 58.76%.

Institutional Trading of MetLife

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of MetLife by 3.4% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 59,622,348 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $4,418,612,000 after acquiring an additional 1,974,268 shares in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its position in shares of MetLife by 22.4% in the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 5,396,274 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $378,799,000 after acquiring an additional 988,666 shares in the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc lifted its position in shares of MetLife by 5.4% in the second quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 5,299,800 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $371,993,000 after acquiring an additional 269,246 shares in the last quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. lifted its position in shares of MetLife by 3.2% in the second quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 3,224,930 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $226,358,000 after acquiring an additional 100,782 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Nordea Investment Management AB lifted its position in shares of MetLife by 4.1% in the first quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 2,772,751 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $205,544,000 after acquiring an additional 108,739 shares in the last quarter. 89.81% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About MetLife

MetLife, Inc, a financial services company, provides insurance, annuities, employee benefits, and asset management services worldwide. It operates through six segments: Retirement and Income Solutions; Group Benefits; Asia; Latin America; Europe, the Middle East and Africa; and MetLife Holdings. The company offers life, dental, group short-and long-term disability, individual disability, pet insurance, accidental death and dismemberment, vision, and accident and health coverages, as well as prepaid legal plans; administrative services-only arrangements to employers; and general and separate account, and synthetic guaranteed interest contracts, as well as private floating rate funding agreements.