MediaAlpha, Inc. (MAX)

FundamentalScore 4/5: SEC filings show strong recent revenue momentum and adequate liquidity/covenant compliance, while the stock screens inexpensive on sales and free-cash-flow metrics. Key watch-items are partner concentration/at-will contracts, regulatory scrutiny (including FTC history), and cyclicality in insurance customer-acquisition budgets; some EBITDA-based metrics and DCF/dividend data were unavailable/unreliable in this run.

MAX’s near-term narrative is being driven by its Q2’26 earnings beat and upbeat outlook (announced 2026-07-29), with the last ~14d of coverage skewing bullish. The 30–90d baseline was mixed-to-negative on FTC-settlement/governance headlines, so sentiment has improved; legal scan shows only law-firm-marketing items with no regulator-confirmed probe (Red-Flag Screen clean).

MAX is in a persistent short-term downtrend: price (11.04) sits below the SMA20 (12.29), SMA50 (12.93), EMA9 (11.67), EMA21 (12.13) and daily VWAP (11.17), with only the SMA200 (10.93) still beneath price after the late-June-to-July advance unwound. Momentum confirms the down-move: MACD line (-0.41) is below signal (-0.28) and below zero with a still-expanding negative histogram (-0.13), RSI14 at 30.53 is weak and falling, and Williams %R at -95.92 is deeply oversold; ADX14 at 22.78 and rising while price makes lower lows indicates a strengthening downside trend, not trend strength to buy. Volume on the 09-16 decline (664k) exceeded the prior session (469k) — distribution, not capitulation. No valid bullish setup exists: any dip-buy (oversold_reversal or pullback_to_support limit) would be a countertrend entry below the SMA50 with MACD < 0, which the trend-alignment gate blocks, and no breakout, range-expansion, or MA-crossover pattern is present. technicalScore 2 (bounce-only chart) is below the 3 required for any bullish entry, so the action is Do Nothing.