Granite Bay Wealth Management LLC Makes New Investment in MetLife, Inc. (NYSE:MET)

Granite Bay Wealth Management LLC bought a new position in shares of MetLife, Inc. (NYSE:MET) in the second quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm bought 8,190 shares of the financial services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $585,000.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the business. Norges Bank bought a new position in shares of MetLife during the fourth quarter worth $558,460,000. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in shares of MetLife by 3.4% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 59,622,348 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $4,418,612,000 after purchasing an additional 1,974,268 shares in the last quarter. Swedbank AB bought a new position in shares of MetLife during the first quarter worth $131,456,000. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP boosted its position in shares of MetLife by 20.9% during the fourth quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 4,053,851 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $268,090,000 after purchasing an additional 700,788 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Bessemer Group Inc. boosted its position in shares of MetLife by 29.7% during the first quarter. Bessemer Group Inc. now owns 2,120,275 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $157,133,000 after purchasing an additional 485,811 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 89.81% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts have recently weighed in on MET shares. Piper Sandler reduced their price target on shares of MetLife from $85.00 to $82.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, May 6th. Morgan Stanley boosted their price objective on shares of MetLife from $82.00 to $83.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 10th. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price objective on shares of MetLife from $85.00 to $86.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday. Argus boosted their price objective on shares of MetLife from $77.00 to $80.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, May 22nd. Finally, Citigroup boosted their price objective on shares of MetLife from $83.00 to $89.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 23rd. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $82.85.

MetLife Stock Down 0.4 %

NYSE:MET traded down $0.28 on Monday, hitting $69.85. 3,136,011 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 3,359,879. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $71.69 and a 200-day moving average price of $71.25. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.56, a current ratio of 0.16 and a quick ratio of 0.16. MetLife, Inc. has a 52 week low of $57.91 and a 52 week high of $79.34. The company has a market cap of $49.67 billion, a P/E ratio of 24.22, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.65 and a beta of 1.11.

MetLife (NYSE:MET) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 31st. The financial services provider reported $2.28 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.13 by $0.15. The company had revenue of $17.82 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $18.57 billion. MetLife had a net margin of 4.23% and a return on equity of 21.41%. MetLife’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $1.94 EPS. As a group, analysts expect that MetLife, Inc. will post 8.62 EPS for the current fiscal year.

MetLife declared that its Board of Directors has approved a share buyback plan on Wednesday, May 1st that authorizes the company to repurchase $3.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the financial services provider to reacquire up to 6% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are often an indication that the company’s board believes its shares are undervalued.

MetLife Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, September 10th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, August 6th will be paid a dividend of $0.545 per share. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, August 6th. This represents a $2.18 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.12%. MetLife’s dividend payout ratio is presently 74.91%.

MetLife Profile

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.