Stock Update (NYSE:MET): U.S. district judge strikes down designation of MetLife as ‘too big to fail’

[Reuters] – U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer on Wednesday struck down the designation made by the heads of the country’s financial regulatory agencies that major insurer Metlife Inc. is systemically important to the U.S. financial system. MetLife had argued in court that the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) used a secretive and flawed process when, in 2014, it determined that a collapse of the insurer could devastate the U.S. financial system just as much as failure of a major bank such as Citigroup. Read more on this. MetLife, Inc. (MET) , with a current value of $48.79B, started trading this morning at $42.80. Looking at the equity, the company’s one day range is $42.79 to $45.89 and has traded between $35.00 and $58.23 over the past 12 months. MET shares are currently priced at 7.49x this year’s forecasted earnings, which makes them relatively inexpensive compared to the industry’s 14.81x forward p/e ratio. The company pays shareholders $1.50 per share annually in dividends, yielding 3.55%. According to a consensus of 16 analysts, the earnings estimate of $1.39 per share would be $0.05 worse than the year-ago quarter and a $0.05 sequential decrease. Furthermore, our analysis shows the full-year EPS estimate to be $5.74, which would be a $0.88 improvement when compared to the last year’s annual results. The quarterly earnings estimate is based on a consensus revenue forecast of the current quarter of $17.21 Billion. If realized, that would be a 1.06% increase over the year-ago quarter. More recently, Raymond James upgraded MET from Mkt Perform to Strong Buy (Jan 22, 2016). Previously, Macquarie upgraded MET from Neutral to Outperform. Given all the information above, we should disclose to readers that the average price target is $52.29, which is 22.17% above than it opened this morning. See more in (NYSE:MET) Similar Articles: Market Update: MetLife Inc (NYSE:MET) – MetLife challenges U.S. ‘too big to fail’ designation in court Stock Update: MetLife Inc (NYSE:MET) – MetLife Named ‘2015 Best Life Insurance Company in Turkey’ Stock Update: MetLife Inc (NYSE:MET) – A.M. Best Assigns Ratings to MetLife, Inc.’s New Senior Unsecured Notes