MET vs. AFL, PRU, UNM, PRI, LNC, CNO, CIA, MFC, SLF, and PUK
Should you be buying MetLife stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of MetLife include Aflac (AFL), Prudential Financial (PRU), Unum Group (UNM), Primerica (PRI), Lincoln National (LNC), CNO Financial Group (CNO), Citizens (CIA), Manulife Financial (MFC), Sun Life Financial (SLF), and Prudential (PUK). These companies are all part of the "finance" sector.
MetLife vs.
MetLife (NYSE:MET) and Aflac (NYSE:AFL) are both large-cap finance companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their profitability, valuation, analyst recommendations, earnings, media sentiment, institutional ownership, community ranking, risk and dividends.
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, 0.9% of Aflac shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.
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.
MetLife has a beta of 1.04, meaning that its stock price is 4% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Aflac has a beta of 0.93, meaning that its stock price is 7% less volatile than the S&P 500.
MetLife received 379 more outperform votes than Aflac when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 73.84% of users gave MetLife an outperform vote while only 55.95% of users gave Aflac an outperform vote.
MetLife currently has a consensus target price of $94.58, suggesting a potential upside of 13.00%. Aflac has a consensus target price of $103.36, suggesting a potential downside of 5.66%. Given MetLife's stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities analysts plainly believe MetLife is more favorable than Aflac.
MetLife pays an annual dividend of $2.18 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.6%. 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 raised its dividend for 11 consecutive years and Aflac has raised its dividend for 44 consecutive years.
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.
In the previous week, MetLife had 12 more articles in the media than Aflac. MarketBeat recorded 41 mentions for MetLife and 29 mentions for Aflac. Aflac's average media sentiment score of 1.26 beat MetLife's score of 1.13 indicating that Aflac is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
Summary
MetLife beats Aflac on 12 of the 21 factors compared between the two stocks.
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New MarketBeat Followers Over Time
This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding {thisCompany.Symbol} and its top 5 competitors to their watchlist. Each company is represented with a line over a 90 day period.
Media Sentiment Over Time
This chart shows the average media sentiment of NYSE and its competitors over the past 90 days as caculated by MarketBeat. The averaged score is equivalent to the following: Very Negative Sentiment <= -1.5, Negative Sentiment > -1.5 and <= -0.5, Neutral Sentiment > -0.5 and < 0.5, Positive Sentiment >= 0.5 and < 1.5, and Very Positive Sentiment >= 1.5.
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This page (NYSE:MET) was last updated on 3/26/2025 by MarketBeat.com Staff
