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 second 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 steel company named, Nucor Corp Their trading ticker symbol is NUE. My most recent report on Nucor Corp was July 24 when I reviewed it for my IVY folio.

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 dividend-paying equities or funds 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, or not.

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

NUE Price

Nucor's price per share closed at $55.20 yesterday. A year ago its price was $62.14. So, in the past year, its price dropped $6.94 or almost 11.2%.

Assuming Nucor's stock trades in a range of $45 to $65 this next year, it's recent $55.20 price could rise by $1.80 and might hit $57.00 by mid-November, 2020, assuming some upward price momentum continues.

NUE Dividends

Nucor's latest declared quarterly dividend was $0.40, paid November 8th.

That $0.40 Q dividend equates to $1.60 annually and yields 2.9% based on yesterday's $55.20 closing price.

NUE Gains?

Adding the $1.60 annual estimated dividend to my $1.80 estimate of Nucor's price upside shows a $3.40 potential gross gain, per share, which will be reduced by any costs to trade these shares.

Say, for costs, we put a little under $1,000.00 today into Dow Inc at its recent $55.20 price, we'd buy 18 shares of NUE.

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 $3.40 gross estimated gain per share leaves a net gain of $2.84 X 18 shares = $51.12 or a 5.15 % net gain on a $993.60 investment.

Therefore, Nucor Corp, whose trading ticker symbol is NUE shows a possible 5.15% net gain including a 2.9% 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 Nucor Corp is worth your time and money.