Kaiser Aluminum Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, manufactures and sells semi-fabricated specialty aluminum mill products. It offers flat-rolled plate, sheet, and coil; extruded rod, bar, hollows, and shapes; drawn rod, bar, pipe, tube, and wire; and cast aluminum products. The company also offers aero/HS products, such as heat-treated plates and sheets, hard alloy extruded shapes, cold finish rods and bars, …
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Competitive advantage assessment
Key strengths
Margins Stable Across CyclesOperating margin volatility is low (stability score 0.98), demonstrating pricing resilience across cycles.
ROIC Sustainably Above PeersROIC at 75.3th percentile exceeds peers and WACC, demonstrating superior capital allocation.
Key risks
Revenue Volatility Signals Weak StickinessRevenue volatility is high (stability score 0.22), suggesting weak customer stickiness.
The dashed ring is the peer median. Defense scores are percentile ranks
against peers, so 50 is roughly the typical company in this group.
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Where KALU ranks in Materials: Industrial Metals & Mining
Kaiser Aluminum Corporation ranks #19 of 86
scored companies in Materials: Industrial Metals & Mining by moat score — the top 22%.
The widest moat in the group is Southern Copper Corporation (SCCO)
at 90/100.
Moat scores for companies ranked near KALU in Materials: Industrial Metals & Mining
Pricing power is the ability to raise prices without losing volume.
Cost Advantage
Score 70
· 15% of the moat score
A cost advantage means delivering the same product for structurally less — better purchasing, denser distribution, a more automated process.
Customer Stickiness
Score 42
· 15% of the moat score
Stickiness is what makes revenue repeat without being re-won every year.
Capital Efficiency
Score 78
· 18% of the moat score
Capital efficiency asks what the company earns on the money tied up in the business.
Resilience
Score 54
· 17% of the moat score
Resilience is the capacity to get through a bad year on its own terms — enough liquidity, enough interest cover, and enough cash generation to avoid a rescue financing or a forced sale.
Scale & Market Position
Score 68
· 15% of the moat score
Scale matters only when it converts into economics.
Kaiser Aluminum Corporation (KALU) scores 64 out of 100 on the StatsAlpha Moat Map, which rates its competitive advantage as moderate. It ranks #19 of 86 scored companies in Materials: Industrial Metals & Mining, the top 22%. The score is a weighted composite of 6 competitive defenses, each measured against industry peers of 85 companies in Materials: Industrial Metals & Mining. Its strongest defense is Capital Efficiency (78/100) and its weakest is Customer Stickiness (42/100).
How does Kaiser Aluminum Corporation compare with other Materials: Industrial Metals & Mining companies?
Kaiser Aluminum Corporation ranks #19 of 86 scored companies in Materials: Industrial Metals & Mining by moat score. The widest moat in Materials: Industrial Metals & Mining is Southern Copper Corporation (SCCO) at 90/100. The companies ranked closest are Century Aluminum Company (CENX) at 64 just above it and Vizsla Silver Corp. (VZLA) at 64 just below it.
How is the moat score calculated?
Each company is scored with an industry-specific template — Corporate Default in this case, chosen because the defenses that matter to a bank are not the ones that matter to a software company. Every defense combines several financial signals, and each signal is measured as a percentile against a peer group of 85 companies in Materials: Industrial Metals & Mining. The defenses are then weighted to produce the overall score out of 100.
Why is Kaiser Aluminum Corporation scored with the Corporate Default template?
Most public companies sell a product or a service at a margin, so the moat question is whether that margin survives contact with competitors. The Corporate template scores the six defenses that show up in a general operating company's financial signature: whether it can hold price, produce more cheaply than rivals, keep its customers, earn a return above its cost of capital, withstand a downturn, and turn size into economics.
Which competitive defenses are measured for Kaiser Aluminum Corporation?
The Corporate Default template measures 6 defenses, and KALU scores: Pricing Power (71), Cost Advantage (70), Customer Stickiness (42), Capital Efficiency (78), Resilience (54), Scale & Market Position (68). Each is scored independently as a percentile against peers, so a company can be strong on one and weak on another — the overall score reflects how those defenses are weighted for this industry.
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