Metlife (MET)

(A Top Pick April 2/13. Up 31.93%.) The price of the stock is up a fair bit, but so are profits. There is still room for both earnings growth and multiple appreciation. If US 10 year and long-term bonds don’t stay at 2.75%-3.75% forever, the profitability of all lifecos is going to go up very, very substantially over the next few years. Still a Buy.

(Market Call Minute.) Likes the insurance companies. It will benefit from trends in the industry.

How do you determine an exit point for insurance companies? To determine an exit point, you can trade the technicals. On any kind of serious pullback, this is a sector that you want to seriously own. This company has improving ROE’s and earnings growth. Cash flows are rising. Still very cheap at about 1X Book.

Stock is cheap historically. It is a recommendation of his to his clients short term. There is the potential of getting to the low $80s.

Very good valuation, probably better than the Canadian lifecos. You are in good shape owning this.

This has a model price is $67.74, a 30% upside. US financials have been on a tear. The stock price and the balance sheet are confirming to him that the balance sheet does have value.

(Top Pick Apr 2/13, Up 32.44%) Done well this year. Shares were attractive if rates stayed low. The earnings capability on the equity side of the business would do well.

Perfect picture of a stock coming out of the blue, or EBV -3. It will quickly rise to $81.55, EBV. US financials look good, especially insurance companies.

His model price is $64.80, a 31% upside. Yield of 2.22%. Buy it, hold it and look at it in 3 to 5 years and you will be amazed at what sort of gains you will get.

The only difference between this and the Canadian lifecos is that the Canadians are trading at 1.4X BV and 2.1X BV. This one is trading at 85 basis points. High-quality insurance company. Improving ROEs. Expects very strong earnings over the next 12 months. It should benefit from higher bond yields. Buy this while it is still trading below BV.

Great company and has been doing very well. He knows Canadian lifecos better and this is what he invests in. Believes Canadian financial managers are superior than their US counterparts. A rising yield curve is the friend of lifecos so they should be bought and held.

Largest lifeco in the US. Very good opportunity to buy a great franchise at a very low price on a very low earnings base. Getting back to their core business and shying away from some of the more riskier stuff. Sees strong prospects for growth in emerging markets. Really represents an attractive stock in this low interest-rate environment and basically a free call option on any sort of normalization on long-term interest rates.

Insurance companies are trading meaningfully below what their balance sheets say. Business is under stress with low interest rates.