Aflac (AFL) Competitors

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

Do insiders & institutionals have more ownership in MET or AFL?

95.0% of MetLife shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 67.4% of Aflac shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.3% of MetLife shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.8% of Aflac shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Do analysts rate MET or AFL?

MetLife presently has a consensus target price of $89.92, suggesting a potential upside of 3.56%. Aflac has a consensus target price of $102.07, suggesting a potential downside of 4.10%. Given MetLife's stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe MetLife is more favorable than Aflac.

Company	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
MetLife	0 Sell rating(s)	0 Hold rating(s)	12 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	3.00
Aflac	2 Sell rating(s)	9 Hold rating(s)	3 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	2.07

Is MET or AFL a better dividend stock?

MetLife pays an annual dividend of $2.18 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.5%. Aflac pays an annual dividend of $2.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.9%. MetLife pays out 44.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Aflac pays out 30.1% 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 raised its dividend for 11 consecutive years and Aflac has raised its dividend for 44 consecutive years.

Which has stronger earnings and 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	$70.55B	0.85	$1.58B	$4.96	17.51
Aflac	$18.70B	3.16	$4.66B	$6.64	16.03

Does the MarketBeat Community believe in MET or AFL?

MetLife received 375 more outperform votes than Aflac when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 73.80% of users gave MetLife an outperform vote while only 56.29% of users gave Aflac an outperform vote.

Company	Underperform	Outperform
MetLife	Outperform Votes 952 73.80%	Underperform Votes 338 26.20%
Aflac	Outperform Votes 577 56.29%	Underperform Votes 448 43.71%

Which has more volatility & risk, MET or AFL?

MetLife has a beta of 1.07, suggesting that its share price is 7% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Aflac has a beta of 1, suggesting that its share price has a similar volatility profile to the S&P 500.

Does the media refer more to MET or AFL?

In the previous week, Aflac had 6 more articles in the media than MetLife. MarketBeat recorded 27 mentions for Aflac and 21 mentions for MetLife. Aflac's average media sentiment score of 0.92 beat MetLife's score of 0.53 indicating that Aflac is being referred to more favorably in the news media.

Company	Very Positive	Positive	Neutral	Negative	Very Negative	Overall Sentiment
MetLife	10 Very Positive mention(s)	1 Positive mention(s)	5 Neutral mention(s)	4 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Positive
Aflac	14 Very Positive mention(s)	5 Positive mention(s)	3 Neutral mention(s)	2 Negative mention(s)	1 Very Negative mention(s)	Positive

Is MET or AFL more profitable?

Aflac has a net margin of 22.02% compared to MetLife's net margin of 5.27%. MetLife's return on equity of 20.01% beat Aflac's return on equity.

Company	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
MetLife	5.27%	20.01%	0.86%
Aflac	22.02%	16.34%	3.15%

Summary

MetLife beats Aflac on 11 of the 21 factors compared between the two stocks.