Preferred Issues: KeyCorp Sheds Cellar-Dweller Tag, With Help

For those who believe Wall Street is too unforgiving, consider the case of KeyCorp, whose years-long term in the investor doghouse ended in a flash last week.

It helped that the company, finally, found itself a high-profile buyer. Not the takeover kind, though rumors of a possible bid were drifting around Wall Street on Friday. In this case it was a relatively modest purchase of about 155,000 shares by Warren Buffett, who last dabbled in KeyCorp stock in 1996.