MetLife (NYSE:MET) vs. Goosehead Insurance (NASDAQ:GSHD) Critical Analysis

Goosehead Insurance (NASDAQ:GSHD) and MetLife (NYSE:MET) are both finance companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their valuation, analyst recommendations, profitability, dividends, earnings, risk and institutional ownership.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current ratings for Goosehead Insurance and MetLife, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Goosehead Insurance	1	6	7	0	2.43
MetLife	0	1	11	1	3.00

Goosehead Insurance presently has a consensus price target of $68.45, indicating a potential upside of 4.98%. MetLife has a consensus price target of $102.21, indicating a potential upside of 4.82%. Given Goosehead Insurance’s higher probable upside, equities research analysts plainly believe Goosehead Insurance is more favorable than MetLife.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

95.0% of MetLife shares are held by institutional investors. 38.1% of Goosehead Insurance shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.4% of MetLife shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Goosehead Insurance and MetLife”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Goosehead Insurance	$402.16 million	5.76	$27.83 million	$1.37	47.60
MetLife	$77.08 billion	0.81	$3.38 billion	$5.22	18.68

MetLife has higher revenue and earnings than Goosehead Insurance. MetLife is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Goosehead Insurance, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Dividends

Goosehead Insurance pays an annual dividend of $4.60 per share and has a dividend yield of 7.1%. MetLife pays an annual dividend of $2.37 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.4%. Goosehead Insurance pays out 335.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. MetLife pays out 45.4% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. MetLife has increased its dividend for 12 consecutive years.

Risk & Volatility

Goosehead Insurance has a beta of 1.36, indicating that its share price is 36% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, MetLife has a beta of 0.77, indicating that its share price is 23% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Goosehead Insurance and MetLife’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Goosehead Insurance	8.78%	-21.00%	9.43%
MetLife	4.57%	23.39%	0.89%

Summary

MetLife beats Goosehead Insurance on 10 of the 18 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Goosehead Insurance

Goosehead Insurance, Inc. operates as a holding company for Goosehead Financial, LLC that engages in the provision of personal lines insurance agency services in the United States. The company offers homeowner’s, automotive, dwelling property, flood, wind, earthquake, excess liability or umbrella, motorcycle, recreational vehicle, general liability, property, and life insurance products and services. As of December 31, 2023, it operated 1,415 franchise locations. The company was founded in 2003 and is headquartered in Westlake, Texas.

About MetLife

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. 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 provides 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 reinsurance solutions; credit insurance products; and protection against long-term health care services. MetLife, Inc. was incorporated in 1999 and is based in New York, New York.