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United Microelectronics Corp has the ticker symbol UMC and is a large-cap member of the technology sector as a semiconductor firm. This is my first report on United Microelectronics for this Vista folio or any of my previous DOTW portfolios.

Founded in 1980, UMC is the world's third-largest dedicated chip foundry, with a 7% market share in 2020 according to Gartner after TSMC and GlobalFoundries. 

UMC's headquarters are in Hsinchu, Taiwan, and it operates 12 fabs in Taiwan, mainland China, Japan, and Singapore, with additional sales offices in Europe, the U.S., and South Korea. 

UMC features a diverse customer base including Texas Instruments, MediaTek, Qualcomm, Broadcom, Xilinx, and Realtek, supplying a wide range of products applied in communications, display, memory, automotive, and more. UMC employs about 20,000 people.

Three key data points gauge dividend equities or funds like United Microelectronics Corp (UMC):

(1) Price

(2) Dividends

(3) Returns

Those three basic keys best tell whether any company has made, is making, and will make money. 

UMC Price

United's price per share closed at $8.70 yesterday. One year ago its price was $2.45. Thus, the price per share has grown over 255% as it recovered from last year's Covid market slump. 

Should United Microelectronics stock trade in the range of $9 to $18.00 this next year, its recent $8.70 price might rise by $2.30 to reach $11.00 by May 19, 2022. My estimate is $0.02 higher of the median of four price estimates from analysts tracking UMC. 

UMC Dividends

United's most recent Annual dividend of $0.136 was paid on August 12th. and yields 1.56% at yesterday's $8.70 closing price. United Microelectronics has paid variable annual dividends (generally increasing annually) since September 2005 (almost 16 years.)

UMC Returns

Adding the $0.136 annual United Microelectronics Corp forward-looking dividend to my $2.30 price upside estimate shows a $2.44 potential gross gain, per share, to be reduced by any costs to trade the shares.  

If we put a little over $1,000.00 today in UMC at $8.70 per share, we'd buy 115 shares.

A $10 broker fee (if charged) would be paid half at purchase and half at a sale and might cost us about $0.09 per share.

Subtract that maybe $0.09 brokerage cost from my estimated $2.44 gross gain per share results in a net gain of $2.35 X 75 shares = $176.25 for a 17.6% net gain on a $1,000.50 investment.

So it is that United Microelectronics Corp shows a possible 17.6% net gain including a 1.56% forward-looking dividend yield. 

Over the next year at this time, a $1000 investment in UMC could generate $15.60 in cash dividends. And a single share bought at yesterday's closing price was $8.70! So, if UMC is your kind of communication equipment investment, United Microelectronics Corp's share price is over $7.00 below the expected annual dividend income from $1,000 invested. This suggests now is a prime time to add United Microelectronics to your holdings. 

All of the estimates above are speculation based on the past history of United Microelectronics Corp. Only time and money invested in this stock will determine its worth.