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 fourth of five energy stocks striving to be picked to join my Volio folio. This could be the eleventh pick for Volio!

That energy sector includes six industries all related to bringing oil and gas to market. They are: drilling, exploration and production (E&P), equipment and services, integrated, midstream, refining & marketing.  (Yes, those are the six oily and gassy enterprises.)

My subject today is another large-cap oil & gas integrated company named, Total SA Their trading ticker symbol is TOT. This is my first report on Total SA (TOT).

Total is an integrated oil and gas company that explores for, produces, and refines oil around the world.

In 2018, it produced 1.6 million barrels of liquids and 6.6 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day. At year-end 2018, reserves stood at 12.1 billion barrels of oil equivalent, 43% of which were liquids.

The company operates refineries with a capacity of 2.0 million barrels a day, primarily in Europe, distributes refined products in 65 countries, and manufactures commodity and specialty chemicals. It also holds a 19% interest in Russian oil company Novatek.

TOTAL S.A. also has a strategic partnership with Tellurian to develop the Driftwood LNG project located in Louisiana; Deutsche Post DHL Group; and Adani Group. The company was founded in 1924 and is headquartered in Paris, France.

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

(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.

TOT Price

Total's price per share closed at $54.30 yesterday. A year ago its price was $55.96. So, in the past year, its price fell $1.66 or almost 3%.

Assuming Total's stock trades in a range of $48 to $68 this next year, it's recent $54.30 price could rise by $10.70 and might get to $65.00 by mid-November, 2020, assuming some solid upward price momentum kicks-in.

TOT Dividends

Total's latest declared quarterly dividend was $0.7197, paid October 18th.

That $0.72 Q dividend equates to $2.88 annually to yield 5.30% based on yesterday's $54.30 closing price.

TOT Gains?

Adding the $2.88 annual estimated dividend to my $10.70 estimate of Equinor's price upside shows a $13.58 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 Total SA at its recent $54.30 price, we'd buy 18 shares of TOT.

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 $13.58 gross estimated gain per share leaves a net gain of $13.02 X 18 shares = $234.36 or a 23.5 % net gain on a $977.40 investment.

Therefore, Total SA, whose trading ticker symbol is TOT shows a possible 23.5% net gain including a 5.30% 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 Total SA is worth your time and money.