This week, I'm looking for the fifth materials representative of nine for my Ivy portfolio.

The materials sector includes thirteen industries all tied to the mining or manufacturing of basic stuff we need. Commodities: such as agricultural inputs, aluminum; building materials, chemicals, coal, copper, gold, industrial metals, lumber & wood, paper, silver, specialty chemicals, and steel.

Today I'm reviewing a large-cap steel company named Nucor Corp. Its trading ticker symbol is NUE. I last reported on Nucor back on September 12th.

The largest steelmaker in the United States by production volume, Nucor uses electric arc furnaces to produce a wide variety of steel products that service all major end markets. Nucor is involved in every phase of the steelmaking value chain, from collecting and processing scrap to manufacturing value-added fabricated steel products.

The company offers its products through its in-house sales forces; and internal distribution and trading companies. The company was founded in 1940 and is based in Charlotte, North Carolina.

I use three key data points to gauge the value of any dividend equity-like Nucor Corp:

(1) Price

(2) Dividends

(3) Returns

Besides those three, several other keys will finally unlock an equity or fund in which to invest.

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

NUE Price

Nucor's price per share closed at $56.18 yesterday. A year ago its price was $62.94. Price fell $6.76 or 10.74% in the past year.

Assuming Nucor's stock trades in the range of $50.00 to $65.00 this year,

Nucor's recent $56.18 price could rise by $4.82 and go to $61.00 by early May 2020.

NUE Dividends

Nucor's most recent declared quarterly dividend was $0.40 declared February 19th and payable, Friday, May 10th.

A $0.40 Q dividend equates to an annual payout of $1.60 for a yield of 2.85% at yesterday's $56.18 closing price.

Gains For NUE?

Adding a $1.60 annual estimated dividend to my $4.82 estimate of NUE's price upside shows a $6.42 potential gross annual gain, per share, which will be reduced by costs to trade those shares.

Say we pay a little over $1,000.00 today at the $56.18 recent stock price would buy us 18 Nucor Corp shares.

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

Subtract that $0.56 brokerage cost from the estimated $6.42 gross annual gain leaves a net gain of $5.86 X 18 shares

= $105.48 or a 10.5% net gain on a $1,011.24 investment.

Therefore, Nucor Corp whose trading ticker symbol is NUE now shows a possible net gain of  10.5% including a 2.85% dividend yield.

Sixteen brokers cover Nucor's stock:

Eight say "buy" NUE.

Three say NUE will "outperform" its peers.

Five say "hold" NUE.

The consensus score is 1.812 or "outperform".

Therefore, you can look at Nucor Corp and see it has made money, is making money, and could net a 10.5% gain including a 2.85% 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 determine if Nucor Corp is worth your time and money.