What to expect from MetLife's (MET) Q3 earnings

What happened

MetLife will report quarterly earnings on Wednesday after the market closes. Last quarter, revenue was $19.08 billion, up 6.4% from a year earlier, but the company still missed analysts' revenue expectations and fell significantly short of analysts' book value per share estimates.

Confirmed

Global impact / market context

Investors expect revenue to rise 10.8% this quarter, faster than last year's 1.6% gain. MetLife has repeatedly missed revenue estimates, so another shortfall could weaken confidence in the insurer's growth and weigh on the stock, while a beat could restore credibility.

Analyst inference

Peer results hint at soft third-quarter trends: Equitable Holdings grew revenue 3.9% but missed estimates by 1.8%, and CNO Financial grew 4.5% while missing by 15.2%. CNO shares still rose 4.5%, suggesting investors may tolerate misses if other results reassure them.

Analyst inference

What to watch

1. MetLife's reported revenue and whether it reaches the 10.8% year-on-year growth analysts expect, compared with the 1.6% increase in the same quarter last year. Confirmed
2. Watch whether analysts change their estimates after the results, since they reconfirmed them over the last 30 days, which means they expect the business to stay the course. Proposed
3. Compare MetLife's revenue growth with Equitable Holdings' 3.9% and CNO Financial's 4.5% to judge whether weak peer trends also hit MetLife. Analyst inference

Evidence

• stockstory.org