A portfolio of stocks I've been building since September 3, 2019, named Volio, 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 fourth of five utilities sector stocks poised to join my Volio folio this week. One could be my forty-third pick for Volio!

That utilties sector includes seven industries all geared to delivering water, gas or electricity (or all three) to us. Utilities industries are: diversified; independent power producers; regulated electric, regulated gas; regulated water; renewable.

My subject today is a mid-cap regulated gas utility named, NiSource Inc. Its trading ticker symbol is NI. This is my first ever report on NiSource Inc.

NiSource is one of the nation's largest natural gas distribution companies with approximately 3.5 million customers in Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

NiSource’s electric utility transmits and distributes electricity in northern Indiana to about 500,000 customers. The regulated electric utility also owns more than 3,000 megawatts of generation capacity, most of which is now coal-fired but is being replaced by natural gas and renewables.

The company was formerly known as NIPSCO Industries, Inc. and changed its name to NiSource Inc. in April 1999. NiSource Inc. was founded in 1912 and is headquartered in Merrillville, Indiana.

I use three key data points to gauge dividend equities or funds like NiSource Inc:

(1) Price

(2) Dividends

(3) Returns

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

NI Price

NiSource's price per share closed at $22.39 yesterday. A year ago their price was $29.33. Price fell $6.94 or about 24% last year.

Assuming NiSource's stock trades in the range of $18 to $28  this next year, its recent $22.39 price might rise by $2.61 to reach $25.00 by June 25, 2021.

NI Dividends

NiSource's most recent declared quarterly dividend was $0.21 payable, August 20th. That $0.21Q dividend equates to $84 annually for an annual yield of 3.75% at yesterday's $22.39 share price.

NI Gains?

Adding the $0.84 annual estimated dividend to my $2.61 optimistic estimate of NiSource Inc price upside shows a $3.45 potential gross gain, per share, to be reduced by any costs to trade the shares.

If we put little over $1,000.00 today in NiSource Inc we would buy 45 shares of NI stock.

A $10 broker fee paid half at purchase and half at sale could cost us about $0.22 per share.

Subtract that $0.22 brokerage cost from my estimated $3.45 gross gain per share results in a net gain of $3.23 X 45 shares = $145.35 for a 14.5% net gain on a $1,007.55 investment.

NiSource Inc shows a possible 14.2% net gain including a 4.08% dividend yield. It could be more, it could be less.     

The above speculation is based on past performance and supposition. Only time and money invested will tell if NiSource Inc is worth it.