Is Metlife Inc (MET) A Good Stock To Buy?

The latest 13F reporting period has come and gone, and Insider Monkey is again at the forefront when it comes to making use of this gold mine of data. We at Insider Monkey have plowed through 873 13F filings that hedge funds and well-known value investors are required to file by the SEC. The 13F filings show the funds’ and investors’ portfolio positions as of June 30th. In this article we look at what those investors think of Metlife Inc (NYSE:MET).

Is MET a good stock to buy? Metlife Inc (NYSE:MET) was in 41 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the second quarter of 2021. The all time high for this statistic is 50. MET investors should pay attention to an increase in support from the world’s most elite money managers recently. There were 32 hedge funds in our database with MET positions at the end of the first quarter. Our calculations also showed that MET isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q2 rankings).

To the average investor there are numerous tools market participants use to analyze stocks. A couple of the most under-the-radar tools are hedge fund and insider trading interest. Our experts have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the top money managers can outclass the market by a solid margin (see the details here). Also, our monthly newsletter’s portfolio of long stock picks returned 185.4% since March 2017 (through August 2021) and beat the S&P 500 Index by more than 79 percentage points. You can download a sample issue of this newsletter on our website.

Richard S. Pzena of Pzena Investment Management

At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, we like undervalued, EBITDA-positive growth stocks, so we are checking out stock pitches like this emerging biotech stock. We go through lists like the 10 best EV stocks to pick the next Tesla that will deliver a 10x return. Even though we recommend positions in only a tiny fraction of the companies we analyze, we check out as many stocks as we can. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. You can subscribe to our free daily newsletter on our homepage. With all of this in mind let’s check out the key hedge fund action regarding Metlife Inc (NYSE:MET).

Do Hedge Funds Think MET Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?

At the end of June, a total of 41 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 28% from one quarter earlier. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards MET over the last 24 quarters. So, let’s see which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

The largest stake in Metlife Inc (NYSE:MET) was held by Pzena Investment Management, which reported holding $315.7 million worth of stock at the end of June. It was followed by Diamond Hill Capital with a $255.9 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Citadel Investment Group, Samlyn Capital, and Citadel Investment Group. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Pzena Investment Management allocated the biggest weight to Metlife Inc (NYSE:MET), around 1.23% of its 13F portfolio. Samlyn Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 1.15 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to MET.

With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, key money managers were breaking ground themselves. Samlyn Capital, managed by Robert Pohly, created the largest position in Metlife Inc (NYSE:MET). Samlyn Capital had $78.6 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw also made a $42.3 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Jinghua Yan’s TwinBeech Capital, Paul Tudor Jones’s Tudor Investment Corp, and Ryan Tolkin (CIO)’s Schonfeld Strategic Advisors.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Metlife Inc (NYSE:MET) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated (NASDAQ:VRTX), Biogen Inc. (NASDAQ:BIIB), Carvana Co. (NYSE:CVNA), ING Groep N.V. (NYSE:ING), UBS Group AG (NYSE:UBS), Relx PLC (NYSE:RELX), and Roblox Corporation (NYSE:RBLX). This group of stocks’ market values are similar to MET’s market value.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 38.4 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $2940 million. That figure was $1057 million in MET’s case. Biogen Inc. (NASDAQ:BIIB) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Relx PLC (NYSE:RELX) is the least popular one with only 6 bullish hedge fund positions. Metlife Inc (NYSE:MET) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for MET is 63.3. Stocks with higher number of hedge fund positions relative to other stocks as well as relative to their historical range receive a higher sentiment score. Our calculations showed that top 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 95.8% in 2019 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 40 percentage points. These stocks gained 21.8% in 2021 through October 11th and still beat the market by 4.4 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on MET as the stock returned 9.7% since the end of Q2 (through 10/11) and outperformed the market. Hedge funds were rewarded for their relative bullishness.

Suggested Articles:

• 12 Largest Oil Tanker Companies In The World
• 15 Most Expensive Things You Can Buy on Amazon Right Now
• 15 Biggest Power Companies In The World

Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.