Kaiser Aluminum Corp (KALU) Stock — Forensic Analysis, Red Flags & Rating | Stockonomy · Stockonomy
Forensic Analysis · Materials / Mining & Chemicals · as of Aug 8, 2026
Kaiser Aluminum Corp (KALU)
A forensic read on Kaiser Aluminum Corp built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.
C · Mixed — selective
Forensic grade
Safe
Financial health
4.5
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
4
Forensic signals
12.9
P / E (ttm)
13.6%
ROE
$2.8B
Market cap
1.80%
Dividend yield
11.5%
Revenue growth
This free snapshot doesn't read filing or proxy text, so the auditor-quality and governance checks that can lower a grade were not evaluated (red flags, auditor quality, say on pay, board independence). Those checks only ever lower a grade, so the full analysis can land below the grade above but never above it — treat it as the most favourable reading, not the settled one.
Kaiser Aluminum Corp earns a C (Mixed — selective) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 4.5, placing it in the Safe zone. 4 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by share-count dilution.
What the filings flag
+1.5%/yr
FY2022–FY2025
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +5% over the last 3 years to FY2025 (+1.5%/yr). A change of direction: the count shrank over the full period (net -0.9%/yr since FY2011) but has grown across the recent window, so the two figures point opposite ways — read the recent window on totals versus per-share, since the full-period rate no longer describes what the count is doing now. That's ~1.5% shaved off per-share growth every year — total profit has to grow that much just to keep earnings-per-share flat, and a stake held since FY2022 has been diluted ~4%.
FCF ($26M)
FY2025
Shareholder returns.Returned $51M to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2025, but free cash flow was ($26M) after capex — there was no free cash flow to fund the payout from at all, though operating cash flow alone was $111M — 46% of that. The entire return is coming from debt or cash reserves, not cash the business itself generated — a harder case than returns merely running ahead of free cash flow, since here there was none to run ahead of.
6.6%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 6.6% in the latest fiscal year and rising from 0% — slightly below its ~8% cost of capital — reinvestment is roughly a wash.
$46M
FY2019–FY2022
Goodwill impairments.Took $46M of goodwill writedowns across 2 years (FY2019 ($25M), FY2022 ($20M)) — about 107% of net income over the span. Writedowns mean past acquisitions underperformed what was paid for them.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$3.37B
Revenue Growth YoY+11.5%
Revenue CAGR (3yr)-0.5%
Net Margin3.3%
Free Cash Flow-$25.5M
Return on Equity13.6%
Debt / Equity1.28x
The forensic grade and screens above are free — no account needed. Want the AI investment read on top — the 0–100 rating, thesis, bull-vs-bear, red flags and the 12-month scenario, written from Kaiser Aluminum Corp's actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?