S&P Downgrades Credit Ratings on Five Banks, Puts Three Others on Negative Outlook…

by Pam Martens and Russ Martens at Wall Street on Parade

The stock prices of KeyCorp and Comerica had already lost more than 40 percent of their market value over the past year through the closing bell on Monday. KeyCorp was sporting a depressed share price of $10.89 at the close yesterday after trading in the single digits during the banking crisis in March. Then S&P Global delivered more bad news yesterday. It downgraded the credit rating on both KeyCorp and Comerica by one notch.  Outlooks were indicated as “stable” for both banks by S&P.

Three other banks were also downgraded by one notch yesterday by S&P: Valley National Bancorp, UMB Financial Corp. and Associated Banc-Corp.

S&P lowered outlooks on two other banks to negative: River City Bank and S&T Bank.

The ratings action on KeyCorp is particularly noteworthy. According to the Federal Reserve, as of June 30 KeyCorp had $193 billion in consolidated assets and ranked as the 20^th largest bank in the United States. (That compares to consolidated assets at Comerica of $91 billion; Valley National Bancorp at $62 billion; Associated Banc-Corp and UMB Financial Corp. at $41 billion each.)

S&P cited the following as its concerns specific to KeyCorp:…