Source: Unsplash

A portfolio of stocks I started building on September 8, at a one stock per week pace for the next year, is named Vista.  I will select its seventeenth stock this weekend. Vista is the sixth portfolio I've built (at a one dividend dog per-week pace) since 2014. Six portfolios = VI for Vista!

Vista is planned to Look Ahead for Outstanding, Proven, Dividend Winners. (Like Aristocrats)

Today I'll review the second of four technology sector stock candidates vying to be that seventeenth selection in Vista.

Today we look at a mid-cap information and financial services company named The Western Union Co. Its trading ticker symbol is WU. This is my second report on Western Union Co for Vista. I last reported on it last September 18 and, in October 2019, selected it for my Volio portfolio.

Western Union provides domestic and international money transfers through its global network of about 500,000 outside agents. It is the largest money transfer company in the world and one of only two companies with a truly global agent network, with MoneyGram being the other.

The Western Union Company was incorporated in 2006 and is headquartered in Denver, Colorado.

I use three key data points to gauge dividend equities or funds like The Western Union Co:

(1) Price

(2) Dividends

(3) Returns

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

WU Price

WU's price per share closed at $21.71 yesterday. A year ago its price was $27.37. Price is down $5.66 or about 20.7% on the year.

If The Western Union Co stock trades in the range of $17 to $27 this next year, its recent $21.71 price might rise by $2.39 to reach $24.00 by December 29, 2021. 

WU Dividends

WU's most recently declared Quarterly dividend was $0.225 payable Thursday, December 31st. Dividends are estimated to total $0.90 per share annually and yield 4.15% at yesterday's $21.71 closing price.

WU Gains?

Adding the $0.90 annual anticipated dividend to my $2.39 optimistic price upside shows a $3.29 potential gross gain, per share, to be reduced by any costs to trade the shares.  

Put little under $1,000.00 today in The Western Union Co at $21.71 per share and we'd buy 46 shares of WU stock.

A $10 broker fee (if any) paid half at purchase and half at sale could cost us about $0.15 per share.

Subtract that maybe $0.15 brokerage cost from my estimated  $3.29 gross gain per share results in a net gain of $3.14 X 46 shares = $144.44 for a 14.45% net gain on a $998.66 investment.

So it goes that The Western Union Co shows a possible 14.45% net gain including a 4.15% dividend yield. It could be more, it could be less.

All of the estimates above are speculation based on the past history of The Western Union Co. Only time and money invested in this stock will determine its worth.