A portfolio of stocks I've been building since September 3 is named Volio Folio. It will eventually hold 52 dividend dogs. Volio is the fifth portfolio I've built (at a one dividend dog per-week pace) since 2014. Five portfolios = V for Volio!

Today I'm reviewing the first of five materials stocks striving to be picked to join my Volio folio. This could be the twelfth pick for Volio!

That materials sector has thirteen industries all related to mining, making, and delivering essential commodities. They are: agricultural inputs; aluminum; building materials; chemicals; coal; copper; industrial metals; gold; paper; silver; specialty chemicals; steel.

My subject today is a large-cap oil & chemical company named, Dow Inc. Their trading ticker symbol is DOW. This is my first report on Dow Inc.

Dow Inc is a diversified chemical manufacturing company. It combining science and technology to develop innovative solutions that are essential to human progress.

Dow's portfolio is comprised of six global business units, organized into three operating segments: Performance Materials and Coatings, Industrial Intermediates and Infrastructure and Packaging and Specialty Plastics.

The company was formerly known as Dow Holdings Inc. And before that, DowDupont. Dow Inc. is based in Midland, Michigan.

I use three key data points to gauge dividend-paying equities or funds like Dow Inc:

(1) Price

(2) Dividends

(3) Returns

Besides those three, several other keys will finally unlock an equity or fund in which to invest, or not.

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

DOW Price

Dow's price per share closed at $54.86 on Friday. Six months ago its price was $49.61. So, in the past half-year, its price rose $5.25 or almost 10.6%.

Assuming Dow's stock trades in a range of $40 to $60 this next year, it's recent $54.86 price could rise by $1.14 and might get to $56.00 by mid-November, 2020, assuming its upward price momentum continues.

DOW Dividends

Dow's latest declared quarterly dividend was $0.70, payable December 13th.

That $0.70 Q dividend equates to $2.80 annually and yields 5.10% based on Friday's $54.86 closing price.

DOW Gains?

Adding the $2.80 annual estimated dividend to my $1.14 estimate of Dow's price upside shows a $3.94 potential gross gain, per share, which will be reduced by any costs to trade these shares.

Say, for costs, we put a little over $1,000.00 today into Dow Inc at its recent $54.86 price, we'd buy 18 shares of DOW.

A $10 broker fee paid half at purchase and half at sale could cost us about $0.56 per share.

Subtract that $0.56 brokerage cost from the estimated $3.94 gross estimated gain per share leaves a net gain of $3.38 X 18 shares = $60.84 or a 6.1 % net gain on a $987.48 investment.

Therefore, Dow Inc, whose trading ticker symbol is DOW shows a possible 6.1% net gain including a 5.1% dividend yield. It could be more, it could be less.

The above speculation is based on past year performance. The actual results remain to be seen to learn if Dow Inc is worth your time and money.