Aflac (AFL) Competitors

MetLife (NYSE:MET) and Aflac (NYSE:AFL) are both large-cap finance companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, valuation, profitability, risk, media sentiment, community ranking, dividends and earnings.

Do analysts rate MET or AFL?

MetLife presently has a consensus price target of $92.46, indicating a potential upside of 26.78%. Aflac has a consensus price target of $103.93, indicating a potential downside of 4.33%. Given MetLife's stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe MetLife is more favorable than Aflac.

Company	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
MetLife	0 Sell rating(s)	1 Hold rating(s)	13 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	2.93
Aflac	2 Sell rating(s)	10 Hold rating(s)	2 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	2.00

Do institutionals and insiders hold more shares of MET or AFL?

95.0% of MetLife shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 67.4% of Aflac shares are held by institutional investors. 0.3% of MetLife shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.9% of Aflac shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Is MET or AFL more profitable?

Aflac has a net margin of 28.76% compared to MetLife's net margin of 6.19%. MetLife's return on equity of 20.42% beat Aflac's return on equity.

Company	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
MetLife	6.19%	20.42%	0.86%
Aflac	28.76%	16.20%	3.32%

Which has more risk and volatility, MET or AFL?

MetLife has a beta of 0.89, indicating that its stock price is 11% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Aflac has a beta of 0.81, indicating that its stock price is 19% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Is MET or AFL a better dividend stock?

MetLife pays an annual dividend of $2.18 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.0%. Aflac pays an annual dividend of $2.32 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.1%. MetLife pays out 36.5% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Aflac pays out 24.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. MetLife has increased its dividend for 11 consecutive years and Aflac has increased its dividend for 44 consecutive years.

Which has better earnings & valuation, MET or AFL?

Aflac has lower revenue, but higher earnings than MetLife. Aflac is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than MetLife, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Company	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
MetLife	$69.90B	0.71	$4.43B	$5.97	12.22
Aflac	$19.13B	3.10	$5.44B	$9.60	11.32

Does the media favor MET or AFL?

In the previous week, MetLife had 12 more articles in the media than Aflac. MarketBeat recorded 39 mentions for MetLife and 27 mentions for Aflac. Aflac's average media sentiment score of 1.15 beat MetLife's score of 0.77 indicating that Aflac is being referred to more favorably in the news media.

Company	Very Positive	Positive	Neutral	Negative	Very Negative	Overall Sentiment
MetLife	18 Very Positive mention(s)	2 Positive mention(s)	8 Neutral mention(s)	7 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Positive
Aflac	19 Very Positive mention(s)	2 Positive mention(s)	4 Neutral mention(s)	1 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Positive

Does the MarketBeat Community prefer MET or AFL?

MetLife received 385 more outperform votes than Aflac when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 73.98% of users gave MetLife an outperform vote while only 55.83% of users gave Aflac an outperform vote.

Company	Underperform	Outperform
MetLife	Outperform Votes 964 73.98%	Underperform Votes 339 26.02%
Aflac	Outperform Votes 579 55.83%	Underperform Votes 458 44.17%

Summary

MetLife beats Aflac on 12 of the 21 factors compared between the two stocks.