Marketwise Inc (MKTW)
🔔 Watch stock
Our in-house stock scanner ranks MarketWise 18th in its P/FCF ranking: the market value equals 1.0 times free cash flow (as of July 26, 2026). The filings with the U.S. securities regulator, the SEC, show why that number does not deliver what it promises. As of December 31, 2025 the listed share held just 15.2 percent of the operating company — 84.8 percent of the cash flow in the denominator belongs to somebody else. No recommendation, just arithmetic: one sixth on top, the whole thing below.
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This stock currently matches 6 of our scanner strategies — each hit links to the scanner.
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Basics
Performance
Valuation
Profitability
Balance Sheet & Safety
Growth
Dividend
Quality & Screener
AI Rating
Uses AIMarketWise setzt maschinelles Lernen und KI nach eigenen Angaben im Kundenmarketing sowie zunehmend in Produkten und Prozessen ein, verkauft aber selbst keine KI-Technologie.
View the full file — quotes, sources, reviewed filings
„We have invested significant resources into our efforts around consumer marketing, including enterprise-wide customer relationship management (“CRM”) systems, the leveraging of artificial intelligence (“AI”) to analyze this data, and a robust database of customer information."
Wir haben erhebliche Mittel in unser Verbrauchermarketing investiert, darunter unternehmensweite Systeme zur Kundenbeziehungspflege („CRM“), den Einsatz künstlicher Intelligenz („KI“) zur Auswertung dieser Daten und eine umfangreiche Datenbank mit Kundeninformationen.
„We are increasing our use of machine learning and Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) technologies into certain of our products and processes."
Wir weiten den Einsatz von Techniken des maschinellen Lernens und der künstlichen Intelligenz („KI“) in bestimmten unserer Produkte und Prozesse aus.
„We continue to build out our AI tools and predictive analytics capacity through identification of additional business cases and additional data features."
Wir bauen unsere KI-Werkzeuge und unsere Kapazität für vorausschauende Datenauswertung weiter aus, indem wir zusätzliche Anwendungsfälle und weitere Datenmerkmale erschließen.
Filings Reviewed: 10-K 2026-03-06 · 10-Q 2026-05-07 · 8-K 2026-04-24 · 8-K 2026-05-07 · 8-K 2026-07-10 · 8-K 2026-06-08
Rated on July 26, 2026 · How the Rating Is Built
Highlighted are things our editorial team noticed: green = stands out as strong, red = deserves a closer look. No single metric is a verdict on its own — always read it in context.
Quarterly Figures
| Quarter | EPS (Earnings Per Share) | EPS YoY (%) | Sales ($M) | Sales YoY (%) | Net Margin (%) | OCF ($M) | FCF ($M) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024: Q4 | 0.81 | 1,438.10 | 98 | -13.10 | 2.20 | 6 | 6 |
| 2025: Q1 | 0.34 | -46.30 | 84 | -23.40 | 1.10 | 2 | 2 |
| 2025: Q2 | 0.49 | -16.00 | 80 | -23.90 | 1.60 | 18 | 18 |
| 2025: Q3 | 0.57 | -12.50 | 81 | -16.40 | 1.90 | 2 | 2 |
| 2025: Q4 | 0.73 | -9.80 | 83 | -14.40 | 2.30 | 24 | 25 |
| 2026: Q1 | -0.22 | -164.40 | 77 | -7.80 | -0.70 | -2 | -3 |
- EPS (Earnings Per Share):
- Quarterly profit divided by the total share count — how much of the profit works out to a single share.
- YoY (Year over Year):
- Change versus the same quarter a year ago — this is how you compare without seasonal distortion (e.g. the holiday shopping season).
- Sales:
- All revenue for the quarter, before any costs are deducted — the top line of the income statement.
- Net Margin:
- What percentage of sales is left over as profit in the end. Negative means the company is posting a loss.
- OCF (Operating Cash Flow):
- The cash that actually flows into the till from the core business during the quarter — harder to dress up than book profit.
- FCF (Free Cash Flow):
- Operating cash flow minus capital expenditures — the money that's genuinely free to use, say for paying down debt, buybacks, or dividends.
Assessment: Opportunities & Risks
A subscription publisher with almost no capital needs: $328.1 million of revenue on $1.6 million of investing outflows (2025), operating income of $62.6 million and free cash flow of $44.4 million. No financial debt and $70.1 million of cash as of December 31, 2025 (10-K 2025).
Billings are turning: $271.2 million in 2025 (up 13.4 percent), $81.4 million in the first quarter of 2026 (up 15 percent) and preliminarily roughly $91 million in the second quarter (up 56 percent, the highest since 2023). The full-year target was raised by 10 percent to $330 million on July 9, 2026 (8-K of July 10, 2026, Exhibit 99.1).
MarketWise, Inc. held only 15.2 percent of the operating company as of December 31, 2025 (December 31, 2024: 12.4 percent). Of the 2025 group net income of $64.0 million, $58.4 million went to the noncontrolling interests and $5.6 million to the listed company. The P/FCF of 1.0 shown by the scanner therefore divides a Class A market value by a group cash flow (10-K 2025).
Liabilities of $432.0 million stand against total assets of $218.4 million (December 31, 2025); equity is minus $213.6 million and minus $226.9 million as of March 31, 2026. The cause is $368.0 million of invoiced but undelivered subscriptions, settled in newsletters rather than in money (10-K 2025, 10-Q for March 31, 2026).
In 2025 the company paid $49.8 million of tax distributions and $12.2 million of other distributions to the LLC members, against $4.8 million of dividends to Class A shareholders. Cash consequently fell in a good year from $97.9 million to $70.1 million and, preliminarily, to roughly $33 million by June 30, 2026. Roughly $40 million of tax distributions are expected for 2026 (10-K 2025, 8-K of July 10, 2026).
Paid subscribers fell 26.0 percent to 374 thousand in 2025 and stood preliminarily at 400 thousand on June 30, 2026; on a trailing four-quarter basis they still declined 22 percent. Revenue per customer rose from $394 to a preliminary $821. The ratio of lifetime value to acquisition cost stands at 2.0x against the benchmark of 3x named by the company itself (10-K 2025, 10-Q for March 31, 2026).
MarketWise is not a one-year bargain but a debt-free subscription publisher in which the listed share owns a 15.2 percent stake. The business works: $62.6 million of operating income and $44.4 million of free cash flow in 2025, no financial debt, billings growing again (preliminarily up 56 percent in the second quarter of 2026) and a quarterly dividend of $0.45. But 84.8 percent of profit and cash flow belong to the LLC members, $62.0 million flowed to them in 2025, equity stands at minus $213.6 million and cash fell from $97.9 million to a preliminary $33 million. The P/FCF of 1.0 therefore does not measure the company: on a consistent basis the ratio is about 7. Not investment advice.
- MarketWise reached our research list through our in-house stock scanner: 18th place in the P/FCF ranking at a ratio of 1.0 (544 stocks pass the criteria and the 25 strongest hits are shown; as of July 26, 2026). These lists are recalculated daily, so the placement is a dated snapshot.
- Numerator and denominator of the ratio do not match: the market value of roughly $52.6 million contains only the Class A shares, while the $44.4 million of free cash flow comes from the whole group. On a consistent basis — all 15,651,315 shares of both classes against $44.4 million, or $52.6 million against the 15.2 to 17.0 percent share — the ratio is about seven.
- Reverse stock split alert: effective April 2, 2025 every 20 shares became one. All figures in this analysis are stated after the split and the financial statements were retroactively adjusted. Unadjusted price series jump that day from $0.51 to $10.30 — that is the split, not a gain.
- The second-quarter 2026 figures cited here (roughly $91 million of billings, 400 thousand subscribers, roughly $33 million of cash, a $330 million full-year target) come from the release of July 9, 2026 and are expressly preliminary and unaudited. The full report is scheduled for August 6, 2026.
About the Company
MarketWise, Inc. betreibt eine Multi-Brand-Plattform für Inhalte und Technologie für selbstständige Anleger in den USA und international.
| Employees | 451 |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Baltimore, MD |
| Website | marketwise.com |
| IPO Date | 22. Jul 2021 |
| Next Earnings | 6. Aug 2026 |
Management
| Name | Title | Birth Year |
|---|---|---|
| David Eifrig Jr., M.D. | CEO & Director | 1959 |
| Frank Porter Stansberry | Founder & Director | 1973 |
| Erik Mickels CPA | COO, CFO & Principal Accounting Officer | 1977 |
| Marco Galsim | Chief Information Officer | 1975 |
| Michael Alan Palmer | MD, Copywriter & Director | 1972 |
| Scott Daniel Forney J.D. | General Counsel & Corporate Secretary | 1986 |
| Lee Harris | Senior Vice President of Financial Planning & Analysis | – |
Executives per the latest required filings; titles kept in their original language. Source: fundamental data.
Chart
Interactive price chart (TradingView).
Data as of: July 24, 2026 · Source: fundamental data & SEC filings (annual and quarterly reports, 10-K/10-Q)
Note: pure fact-based analysis, not investment advice and not a solicitation to buy or sell. All figures without guarantee.