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How to buy MetLife stock
Own MetLife stock in just a few minutes.
MetLife, Inc is an insurance-life business based in the US. MetLife shares (MET) are listed on the NYSE and all prices are listed in US Dollars.
How to buy shares in MetLife
- Compare share trading platforms. If you're a beginner, look for a platform with low commissions, expert ratings and investment tools to track your portfolio. Narrow down top brands with our comparison table.
- Open and fund your brokerage account. Complete an application with your personal and financial details, like your ID and bank information. Fund your account with a bank transfer, credit card or debit card.
- Search for MetLife. Find the stock by name or ticker symbol: MET. Research its history to confirm it's a solid investment against your financial goals.
- Purchase now or later. Buy today with a market order or use a limit order to delay your purchase until MetLife reaches your desired price. To spread out your purchase, look into dollar-cost averaging, which smooths out buying at consistent intervals and amounts.
- Decide on how many to buy. Weigh your budget against a diversified portfolio that can minimize risk through the market's ups and downs. You may be able to buy a fractional share of MetLife, depending on your broker.
- Check in on your investment. Congratulations, you own a part of MetLife. Optimize your portfolio by tracking how your stock — and even the business — performs with an eye on the long term. You may be eligible for dividends and shareholder voting rights on directors and management that can affect your stock.
What's in this guide?
- MET shares summary
- Compare share dealing platforms
- Is MET stock a buy or sell?
- Stock performance over time
- Can I short MET shares?
- Is MET suitable for ethical investing?
- Are MET shares over-valued?
- MetLife's financials
- How volatile are MET shares?
- Does MetLife pay a dividend?
- Have MET shares ever split?
- Other common questions
MetLife share price
Use our graph to track the performance of MET stocks over time.MetLife shares at a glance
Information last updated 2021-03-03.
| 52-week range | USD$21.782 - USD$60.2 |
|---|---|
| 50-day moving average | USD$53.1452 |
| 200-day moving average | USD$44.6956 |
| Wall St. target price | USD$58.09 |
| PE ratio | 10.3803 |
| Dividend yield | USD$1.82 (3.06%) |
| Earnings per share (TTM) | USD$5.68 |
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The value of any investment can go up or down depending on news, trends and market conditions. We are not investment advisers, so do your own due diligence to understand the risks before you invest.
Is it a good time to buy MetLife stock?
The technical analysis gauge below displays real-time ratings for the timeframes you select. This is not a recommendation, however. It represents a technical analysis based on the most popular technical indicators: Moving Averages, Oscillators and Pivots. Finder might not concur and takes no responsibility.
This chart is not advice or a guarantee of success. Rather, it gauges the real-time recommendations of three popular technical indicators: moving averages, oscillators and pivots. Finder is not responsible for how your stock performs.
Is MetLife under- or over-valued?
Valuing MetLife stock is incredibly difficult, and any metric has to be viewed as part of a bigger picture of MetLife's overall performance. However, analysts commonly use some key metrics to help gauge the value of a stock.
MetLife's P/E ratio
MetLife's current share price divided by its per-share earnings (EPS) over a 12-month period gives a "trailing price/earnings ratio" of roughly 10x. In other words, MetLife shares trade at around 10x recent earnings.
That's relatively low compared to, say, the trailing 12-month P/E ratio for the NASDAQ 100 at the end of 2019 (27.29). The low P/E ratio could mean that investors are pessimistic about the outlook for the shares or simply that they're under-valued.
MetLife's PEG ratio
MetLife's "price/earnings-to-growth ratio" can be calculated by dividing its P/E ratio by its growth – to give 2.3482. A low ratio can be interpreted as meaning the shares offer better value, while a higher ratio can be interpreted as meaning the shares offer worse value.
The PEG ratio provides a broader view than just the P/E ratio, as it gives more insight into MetLife's future profitability. By accounting for growth, it could also help you if you're comparing the share prices of multiple high-growth companies.
MetLife's EBITDA
MetLife's EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) is USD$8.2 billion.
The EBITDA is a measure of a MetLife's overall financial performance and is widely used to measure a its profitability.
MetLife financials
| Revenue TTM | USD$67.8 billion |
|---|---|
| Operating margin TTM | 11.55% |
| Gross profit TTM | USD$20.1 billion |
| Return on assets TTM | 0.64% |
| Return on equity TTM | 7.67% |
| Profit margin | 7.97% |
| Book value | $83.5 |
| Market capitalisation | USD$52.1 billion |
TTM: trailing 12 months
Shorting MetLife shares
There are currently 18.2 million MetLife shares held short by investors – that's known as MetLife's "short interest". This figure is 36.5% up from 13.3 million last month.
There are a few different ways that this level of interest in shorting MetLife shares can be evaluated.
MetLife's "short interest ratio" (SIR)
MetLife's "short interest ratio" (SIR) is the quantity of MetLife shares currently shorted divided by the average quantity of MetLife shares traded daily (recently around 5.8 million). MetLife's SIR currently stands at 3.14. In other words for every 100,000 MetLife shares traded daily on the market, roughly 3140 shares are currently held short.
However MetLife's short interest can also be evaluated against the total number of MetLife shares, or, against the total number of tradable MetLife shares (the shares that aren't held by "insiders" or major long-term shareholders – also known as the "float"). In this case MetLife's short interest could be expressed as 0.02% of the outstanding shares (for every 100,000 MetLife shares in existence, roughly 20 shares are currently held short) or 0.0244% of the tradable shares (for every 100,000 tradable MetLife shares, roughly 24 shares are currently held short).
Such a low SIR usually points to an optimistic outlook for the share price, with fewer people currently willing to bet against MetLife.
Find out more about how you can short MetLife stock.
MetLife's environmental, social and governance track record
Environmental, social and governance (known as ESG) criteria are a set of three factors used to measure the sustainability and social impact of companies like MetLife.
When it comes to ESG scores, lower is better, and lower scores are generally associated with lower risk for would-be investors.
MetLife's total ESG risk score
Total ESG risk: 18.05
Socially conscious investors use ESG scores to screen how an investment aligns with their worldview, and MetLife's overall score of 18.05 (as at 01/01/2019) is excellent – landing it in it in the 17th percentile of companies rated in the same sector.
ESG scores are increasingly used to estimate the level of risk a company like MetLife is exposed to within the areas of "environmental" (carbon footprint, resource use etc.), "social" (health and safety, human rights etc.), and "governance" (anti-corruption, tax transparency etc.).
MetLife's environmental score
Environmental score: 0.62/100
MetLife's environmental score of 0.62 puts it squarely in the 2nd percentile of companies rated in the same sector. This could suggest that MetLife is a leader in its sector terms of its environmental impact, and exposed to a lower level of risk.
MetLife's social score
Social score: 7.35/100
MetLife's social score of 7.35 puts it squarely in the 2nd percentile of companies rated in the same sector. This could suggest that MetLife is a leader in its sector when it comes to taking good care of its workforce and the communities it impacts.
MetLife's governance score
Governance score: 9.83/100
MetLife's governance score puts it squarely in the 2nd percentile of companies rated in the same sector. That could suggest that MetLife is a leader in its sector when it comes to responsible management and strategy, and exposed to a lower level of risk.
MetLife's controversy score
Controversy score: 2/5
ESG scores also evaluate any incidences of controversy that a company has been involved in. MetLife scored a 2 out of 5 for controversy – the second-highest score possible, reflecting that MetLife has, for the most part, managed to keep its nose clean.
Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) summary
MetLife, Inc was last rated for ESG on: 2019-01-01.
| Total ESG score | 18.05 |
|---|---|
| Total ESG percentile | 16.56 |
| Environmental score | 0.62 |
| Environmental score percentile | 2 |
| Social score | 7.35 |
| Social score percentile | 2 |
| Governance score | 9.83 |
| Governance score percentile | 2 |
| Level of controversy | 2 |
MetLife share dividends
Dividend payout ratio: 29.82% of net profits
Recently MetLife has paid out, on average, around 29.82% of net profits as dividends. That has enabled analysts to estimate a "forward annual dividend yield" of 3.12% of the current stock value. This means that over a year, based on recent payouts (which are sadly no guarantee of future payouts), MetLife shareholders could enjoy a 3.12% return on their shares, in the form of dividend payments. In MetLife's case, that would currently equate to about $1.82 per share.
While MetLife's payout ratio might seem fairly standard, it's worth remembering that MetLife may be investing much of the rest of its net profits in future growth.
MetLife's most recent dividend payout was on 15 March 2021. The latest dividend was paid out to all shareholders who bought their shares by 4 February 2021 (the "ex-dividend date").
Have MetLife's shares ever split?
MetLife's shares were split on a 1122:1000 basis on 7 August 2017. So if you had owned 1000 shares the day before before the split, the next day you'd have owned 1122 shares. This wouldn't directly have changed the overall worth of your MetLife shares – just the quantity. However, indirectly, the new 10.9% lower share price could have impacted the market appetite for MetLife shares which in turn could have impacted MetLife's share price.
MetLife share price volatility
Over the last 12 months, MetLife's shares have ranged in value from as little as $21.782 up to $60.2. A popular way to gauge a stock's volatility is its "beta".
Beta is a measure of a share's volatility in relation to the market. The market (NYSE average) beta is 1, while MetLife's is 1.3335. This would suggest that MetLife's shares are more volatile than the average for this exchange and represent, relatively-speaking, a higher risk (but potentially also market-beating returns).
MetLife overview
MetLife, Inc. engages in the insurance, annuities, employee benefits, and asset management businesses worldwide. It operates through five segments: U.S.; 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, accidental death and dismemberment, vision, and accident and health coverages, as well as prepaid legal plans; administrative services-only arrangements to employers; and stable value products, including general and separate account guaranteed interest contracts, and private floating rate funding agreements. It also provides pension risk transfers, institutional income annuities, structured settlements, and capital markets investment products; and other products and services, such as life insurance products and funding agreements for funding postretirement benefits, as well as company, bank, or trust-owned life insurance used to finance nonqualified benefit programs for executives. In addition, the company offers personal lines of property and casualty insurance, including private passenger automobile, homeowners', and personal excess liability insurance. Further, it provides fixed and variable annuities, and pension products; accident and health products; regular savings products; whole and term life, endowments, universal and variable life, and group life products; credit insurance products; and protection against long-term health care services. The company serves individuals, corporations and their employees, and other institutions and their members through independent agents, property and casualty specialists, sales forces, sales teams and relationship managers, and sponsoring organizations and affinity groups, as well as through career and independent agencies, bancassurance, direct marketing, brokers, and other third-party distribution channels. MetLife, Inc. was founded in 1863 and is headquartered in New York, New York.
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