A portfolio of stocks I've been building since September 3 is named Volio. 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 fourth of five utilities sector stocks striving to join my Volio folio. This could be the fifteenth pick for Volio!

Now to the utilities 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 large-cap diversified utility, named, The AES Corp. Their trading ticker symbol is AES. This is my first ever report on AES.

AES is a global power company with businesses in 13 countries. It has a portfolio of more than 100 power plants and wind and solar farms. Its current construction program will increase its net generating capacity to over 35 gigawatts. AES also has majority ownership and operates six electric utilities distributing power to 2.4 million customers in the U.S. and El Salvador. AES is one of the world leaders in utility-scale energy storage in its Fluence joint venture with Siemens.

The company was formerly known as Applied Energy Services, Inc. and changed its name to The AES Corporation in April 2000. The AES Corporation was founded in 1981 and is headquartered in Arlington, Virginia.

I use three key data points to gauge dividend-paying equities or funds like The AES 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.

AES Price

The AES Corp's price per share closed at $18.91 yesterday. A year ago its price was $15.74. So, in the past year, its price moved up $3.17, just over 20%.

Assuming The AES Corp's stock trades in the same range of $15 to $25 this next year, it's recent $18.91 price could rise by $1.09  to reach $20.00 by early-December, 2020, assuming the upward price momentum continues.

AES Dividends

The AES Corp's latest declared quarterly dividend was $0.1433  payable February 14th.

That $0.1433 Q dividend equates to $0.57 annually and yields 3.03% based on yesterday's $18.91 closing price.

AES Gains?

Adding the $0.57 annual estimated dividend to my $1.09  optimistic estimate of Star Group's price upside shows a $1.66 potential gross gain, per share, which will be reduced by any costs to trade these shares.

Say, for costs, a little over $1,000.00 invested today in The AES Corp at its recent $18.91 price, would buy 53 shares of AES.

A $10 broker fee paid half at purchase and half at sale could cost us about $0.19 per share.

Subtract that $0.19 brokerage cost from the estimated $1.66 gross estimated gain per share leaves a net gain of $1.47 X 53 shares = $77.91 or a 7.75% net gain on a $1,002.23 investment.

Therefore, The AES Corp, whose trading ticker symbol is AES shows a possible 7.75% net gain including a 3.03% 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 The AES Corp, is worth your time and money