# MetLife (MET.US)

Canonical: https://gigainvestors.com/s/MET

Analysis as of: 2026-10-16T07:30:10.030Z. Financial observations: FY2015–FY2025.

Listing currency: USD. Reporting currency: USD.

## Verdict

Not a wonderful business

Quality tests for Buy: not passed (profit record: pass; earnings resilience is evidence only). Published buy qualification: no.

Share price: $100.27 per share; close as of 2026-10-15.

## Checklist

### understandable: pass

- Financial history: 10 years

- Profitable years in the last ten: 10

- Required profitable years: 8

- Return on common equity variation (informational): 0.50×

Chart: Net income; fiscal year observations.

- FY2016: $747M

- FY2017: $3.9B

- FY2018: $5.0B

- FY2019: $5.7B

- FY2020: $5.2B

- FY2021: $6.7B

- FY2022: $5.1B

- FY2023: $1.4B

- FY2024: $4.2B

- FY2025: $3.2B

### moat: fail

- Common book per share

- median return on common equity below threshold

- Bank / P&C ROTE, median of available years: 9.0%

- Required median return: 10.0%

- Return uses tangible common equity: No

- Bank ROTE, second-lowest year: 4.6%

- Years with reported combined ratio: 0

Chart: Return on common equity; fiscal year observations.

- FY2016: 1.1%

- FY2017: 6.7%

- FY2018: 9.4%

- FY2019: 8.6%

- FY2020: 7.0%

- FY2021: 9.9%

- FY2022: 17.1%

- FY2023: 4.6%

- FY2024: 15.4%

- FY2025: 11.2%

### economics: fail

- Common book per share

- book value per share plus dividends compounded below 7% annually

- Book value per share + reinvested dividends, annualized return: 0.1%

- Book return interval: 10 years

- Starting book value per share: $60.35

- Ending book value per share: $42.18

Chart: Annual book + dividend return; fiscal year observations.

- FY2016: 3.5%

- FY2017: -8.1%

- FY2018: -1.3%

- FY2019: 38.0%

- FY2020: 19.2%

- FY2021: -2.6%

- FY2022: -49.9%

- FY2023: 12.2%

- FY2024: 3.5%

- FY2025: 15.1%

### management: fail

- Common book per share

- book per share gain below retained common earnings per share

- Diluted shares, 10-year annual growth: -5.0%

- Diluted shares, 5-year annual growth: -5.9%

- Share growth excluding flagged crisis recapitalisations: -5.0%

- Five-year share growth excluding flagged crisis recapitalisations: -5.9%

- Flagged crisis recapitalisations: 0

- Book value created per share: -$18.18

- Earnings retained per share after dividends and buybacks: -$7.05

### accounting: pass

- Financial accounting warning count: 0

- Known restatement years: 0

## Holders

- [David Hoeft](https://gigainvestors.com/DAC): tracked 13F investor; follow the investor page for holding quarter and amounts.

- [Richard Pzena](https://gigainvestors.com/PIM): tracked 13F investor; follow the investor page for holding quarter and amounts.

## Price story

Up 67% since Oct 2023 · "MetLife (MET) Sees Record Annuity Demand, Is The Upside Already Priced In?" (finance.yahoo.com, Sep 2026) · net income -24.9%

Story as of 2026-10-16T09:59:09.040Z; price observation 2026-10-15.

- 2025-05-01: MetLife (NYSE:MET) Reports Revenue Rise And Announces US$3 Billion Buyback Initiative ([finance.yahoo.com](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/metlife-nyse-met-reports-revenue-175301613.html))

- 2025-08-06: MetLife's profit falls on less favorable underwriting margins ([ca.finance.yahoo.com](https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/metlifes-profit-falls-less-favorable-224948388.html))

- 2025-11-05: MetLife delivers Q3 earnings beat and revenue miss, hurt by derivatives losses ([seekingalpha.com](https://seekingalpha.com/news/4516352-metlife-delivers-q3-earnings-beat-and-revenue-miss-hurt-by-derivatives-losses?utm_source=feed_news_all&utm_medium=referral&feed_item_type=news))

- 2026-04-07: MetLife sees Q1 variable investment income of at least $475M ([seekingalpha.com](https://seekingalpha.com/news/4572923-metlife-sees-q1-variable-investment-income-of-at-least-475m?utm_source=feed_news_all&utm_medium=referral&feed_item_type=news))

### Net income · FY2025

net income -24.9%; source https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1099219/000109921926000013/met-20251231.htm; observed 2026-02-19.

- FY2016: $747M 

- FY2017: $3.9B 

- FY2018: $5.0B 

- FY2019: $5.7B 

- FY2020: $5.2B 

- FY2021: $6.7B 

- FY2022: $5.1B 

- FY2023: $1.4B 

- FY2024: $4.2B 

- FY2025: $3.2B 

## Owner memo

Memo as of 2026-10-16T08:06:05.509Z.

### How it makes money

Operates in insurance life; annual sales are USD 77.1 billion.

- Source: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1099219/000109921926000013/met-20251231.htm#000109921926000013 (filed 2026-02-19); FY2025: revenue 77084000000.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-10-16); MET.US: MetLife, Inc., a financial services company, provides insurance, annuities, employee benefits, and asset management services worldwide. It operates in six segments: Group Benefits; Retirement and Income Solutions; Asia; Latin America; Europe, the Middle East and Africa; and MetLife Holdings. The company offers life, dental, group short-and long-term disability, paid family and medical leave, individual disability, accidental death and dismemberment, accident and health, vision, and pet insurance, 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. 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, it offers fixed, indexed-linked, and variable annuities; pension products; regular savings products; whole and term life, endowments, universal and variable life, and group life products; longevity and funded reinsurance solutions; credit insurance products; accident & health products covering hospitalization, cancer, critical illness, income protection, and scheduled medical reimbursement plans; and protection against long-term health care services. The company was incorporated in 1999 and is based in New York, New York.

### Why customers stay

It earns 9% on shareholders’ money, excluding intangible assets.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-02-19); 10-year return on tangible equity observations [[2016,0.011061586530630376],[2017,0.06658599768218693],[2018,0.09446161430386227],[2019,0.08649310595065313],[2020,0.06962364870302315],[2021,0.09860407219703032],[2022,0.17064355275927848],[2023,0.04597701149425287],[2024,0.15398068865002731],[2025,0.1117332206493415]]; median 0.0904773601272577. ROIC follows the displayed moat series; financial companies use return on tangible equity.

### Where the cash goes

Paid dividends in 10 of 10 years; bought back USD 3.9 billion of shares.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-02-19); Dividend observations: [[2016,1839000000],[2017,1820000000],[2018,1819000000],[2019,1821000000],[2020,1859000000],[2021,1842000000],[2022,1783000000],[2023,1764000000],[2024,1727000000],[2025,1703000000]]. Zero only counted when supported by a complete cash-flow statement.

- Source: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1099219/000109921926000013/met-20251231.htm (filed 2026-02-19); FY2025: cash repurchases 3883000000 USD.

### Are managers owners

Insiders own 16.4% of the company.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-10-16); MET.US SharesStats.PercentInsiders = 16.35 percentage points; cache date 2026-10-16.

### What could break it

"Interest Rate Risks" (SEC filing, Feb 2026)

- Source: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1099219/000109921926000013/met-20251231.htm (filed 2026-02-19); Interest Rate Risks

### What the price says

The price is 0.9 times annual sales.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-02-19); Closing price 100.27 USD; reporting-to-trading FX 1; FY2025 annual sales per share 114.48685578493985; price multiple 0.8758210653313269. FY2025 cash earnings/share 6.136937472152087. Closing-price date 2026-10-15.

## Monthly share-price history (USD per share)

- 2016-11: $49.03 per share

- 2016-12: $48.03 per share

- 2017-01: $48.49 per share

- 2017-02: $46.74 per share

- 2017-03: $47.08 per share

- 2017-04: $46.18 per share

- 2017-05: $45.09 per share

- 2017-06: $48.97 per share

- 2017-07: $49.02 per share

- 2017-08: $46.83 per share

- 2017-09: $51.95 per share

- 2017-10: $53.58 per share

- 2017-11: $53.68 per share

- 2017-12: $50.56 per share

- 2018-01: $48.07 per share

- 2018-02: $46.19 per share

- 2018-03: $45.89 per share

- 2018-04: $47.67 per share

- 2018-05: $45.99 per share

- 2018-06: $43.60 per share

- 2018-07: $45.74 per share

- 2018-08: $45.89 per share

- 2018-09: $46.72 per share

- 2018-10: $41.19 per share

- 2018-11: $44.63 per share

- 2018-12: $41.06 per share

- 2019-01: $45.67 per share

- 2019-02: $45.19 per share

- 2019-03: $42.57 per share

- 2019-04: $46.13 per share

- 2019-05: $46.21 per share

- 2019-06: $49.67 per share

- 2019-07: $49.42 per share

- 2019-08: $44.30 per share

- 2019-09: $47.16 per share

- 2019-10: $46.79 per share

- 2019-11: $49.91 per share

- 2019-12: $50.97 per share

- 2020-01: $49.71 per share

- 2020-02: $42.72 per share

- 2020-03: $30.57 per share

- 2020-04: $36.08 per share

- 2020-05: $36.01 per share

- 2020-06: $36.52 per share

- 2020-07: $37.85 per share

- 2020-08: $38.46 per share

- 2020-09: $37.17 per share

- 2020-10: $37.85 per share

- 2020-11: $46.17 per share

- 2020-12: $46.95 per share

- 2021-01: $48.15 per share

- 2021-02: $57.60 per share

- 2021-03: $60.79 per share

- 2021-04: $63.63 per share

- 2021-05: $65.36 per share

- 2021-06: $59.85 per share

- 2021-07: $57.70 per share

- 2021-08: $62.00 per share

- 2021-09: $61.73 per share

- 2021-10: $62.80 per share

- 2021-11: $58.66 per share

- 2021-12: $62.49 per share

- 2022-01: $67.06 per share

- 2022-02: $67.55 per share

- 2022-03: $70.28 per share

- 2022-04: $65.68 per share

- 2022-05: $67.39 per share

- 2022-06: $62.79 per share

- 2022-07: $63.25 per share

- 2022-08: $64.33 per share

- 2022-09: $60.78 per share

- 2022-10: $73.21 per share

- 2022-11: $76.70 per share

- 2022-12: $72.37 per share

- 2023-01: $73.02 per share

- 2023-02: $71.73 per share

- 2023-03: $57.94 per share

- 2023-04: $61.33 per share

- 2023-05: $49.55 per share

- 2023-06: $56.53 per share

- 2023-07: $62.97 per share

- 2023-08: $63.34 per share

- 2023-09: $62.91 per share

- 2023-10: $60.01 per share

- 2023-11: $63.63 per share

- 2023-12: $66.13 per share

- 2024-01: $69.32 per share

- 2024-02: $69.74 per share

- 2024-03: $74.11 per share

- 2024-04: $71.08 per share

- 2024-05: $72.37 per share

- 2024-06: $70.19 per share

- 2024-07: $76.85 per share

- 2024-08: $77.48 per share

- 2024-09: $82.48 per share

- 2024-10: $78.42 per share

- 2024-11: $88.23 per share

- 2024-12: $81.88 per share

- 2025-01: $86.51 per share

- 2025-02: $86.18 per share

- 2025-03: $80.29 per share

- 2025-04: $75.37 per share

- 2025-05: $78.58 per share

- 2025-06: $80.42 per share

- 2025-07: $75.95 per share

- 2025-08: $81.36 per share

- 2025-09: $82.37 per share

- 2025-10: $79.82 per share

- 2025-11: $76.56 per share

- 2025-12: $78.94 per share

- 2026-01: $78.88 per share

- 2026-02: $72.07 per share

- 2026-03: $70.72 per share

- 2026-04: $80.10 per share

- 2026-05: $82.69 per share

- 2026-06: $84.61 per share

- 2026-07: $96.13 per share

- 2026-08: $95.17 per share

- 2026-09: $94.16 per share

- 2026-10: $100.65 per share

## Annual estimated value (USD per share)

- FY2016: low $53.96 per share, central $59.36 per share, high $65.96 per share

- FY2017: low $38.34 per share, central $42.18 per share, high $46.87 per share

- FY2018: low $43.22 per share, central $54.02 per share, high $72.03 per share

- FY2019: low $78.94 per share, central $98.67 per share, high $131.56 per share

- FY2020: low $92.38 per share, central $115.48 per share, high $153.97 per share

- FY2021: low $88.82 per share, central $111.03 per share, high $148.04 per share

- FY2022: low $1.66 per share, central $1.83 per share, high $2.03 per share

- FY2023: low $1.22 per share, central $1.34 per share, high $1.49 per share

Historical values use today's bond yield for every fiscal year

Historical values use today's FX rate into trading currency for every fiscal year

Historical values use current restated fundamentals and current commodity classification; they are not point-in-time estimates

## Sources

[Original 10-K filing](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1099219/000109921926000013/met-20251231.htm); period 2025-12-31, filed 2026-02-19.

Estimates depend on assumptions and are not guarantees or investment advice. Underlying data remains subject to its source licenses; public reading does not grant bulk redistribution rights.