Critical Analysis: MediaAlpha (MAX) and The Competition

MediaAlpha (NYSE:MAX – Get Rating) is one of 192 publicly-traded companies in the “Business services, not elsewhere classified” industry, but how does it compare to its peers? We will compare MediaAlpha to related companies based on the strength of its earnings, risk, profitability, institutional ownership, dividends, valuation and analyst recommendations.

Volatility & Risk

MediaAlpha has a beta of 1.26, indicating that its share price is 26% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, MediaAlpha’s peers have a beta of 0.98, indicating that their average share price is 2% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and price targets for MediaAlpha and its peers, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
MediaAlpha	0	2	3	0	2.60
MediaAlpha Competitors	792	4794	10177	259	2.62

MediaAlpha presently has a consensus target price of $16.75, suggesting a potential upside of 125.44%. As a group, “Business services, not elsewhere classified” companies have a potential upside of 22.16%. Given MediaAlpha’s higher probable upside, research analysts plainly believe MediaAlpha is more favorable than its peers.

Profitability

This table compares MediaAlpha and its peers’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
MediaAlpha	-14.22%	N/A	-19.40%
MediaAlpha Competitors	-39.67%	-167.35%	-5.97%

Insider & Institutional Ownership

70.1% of MediaAlpha shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 53.3% of shares of all “Business services, not elsewhere classified” companies are owned by institutional investors. 10.0% of MediaAlpha shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 16.0% of shares of all “Business services, not elsewhere classified” companies are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares MediaAlpha and its peers gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
MediaAlpha	$459.07 million	-$57.67 million	-5.23
MediaAlpha Competitors	$3.85 billion	$81.86 million	-18.46

MediaAlpha’s peers have higher revenue and earnings than MediaAlpha. MediaAlpha is trading at a higher price-to-earnings ratio than its peers, indicating that it is currently more expensive than other companies in its industry.

Summary

MediaAlpha peers beat MediaAlpha on 7 of the 13 factors compared.

MediaAlpha Company Profile

(Get Rating)

MediaAlpha, Inc., through its subsidiaries, operates an insurance customer acquisition platform in the United States. It optimizes customer acquisition in various verticals of property and casualty insurance, health insurance, and life insurance. The company was founded in 2014 and is headquartered in Los Angeles, California.