Stock Overview: KeyCorp (NYSE: KEY)

KeyCorp is a holding company which owns the well-known retail bank KeyBank. As of today, KeyCorp is trading at $17.87. Here are a few things that investors should be paying attention to:

• KEY has a dividend yield of 3.81% and an impressive dividend growth rate of 21.3% over the past five years and 24.9% over the past three years.
• It is a relatively aggressive stock with a beta of 1.50 (3Y monthly) as of today. A bet on KEY may be a bet on the overall market.
• It has a payout ratio of about 39% with Earnings Per Share currently at $1.73.
• Although KEY continued to raise dividends throughout the 2001 recession, it did cut dividends massively during the 2008 financial crisis.
• KEY still has not returned to pre-recession prices nor dividend yields.

The company has been in business since 1849. Although it may be seen by some as a relic of the old financial system, KeyCorp has been striving to innovate within it’s retail banking services as well as it’s commercial banking services with implementations of consumer products such as Zelle (a peer-to-peer payments application) and commercial products such as KeyNavigator (a commercial online banking application).

Rating: BUY