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 the first of four technology sector stocks poised to join my Volio folio this week. One could become my forty-fourth pick for Volio.

That technology sector includes nineteen industries ranging from communication equipment, computers, consumer electronics, and contract manufacturing, to health, information technology and services, to internet, scientific instruments, software, solar, and all such techno-marvels.

My subject today is a large cap semiconductor equipment and materials company, Applied Materials Inc. Its trading ticker is AMAT. This is my first report on AMAT for this portfolio. (It is part of the Ivy collection.)

Applied Materials is one of the world's largest suppliers of semiconductor manufacturing equipment, providing materials engineering solutions to help make nearly every chip in the world. It was founded in 1967 and is headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It operates in the United States, China, Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Southeast Asia, and Europe.

The firm's systems are used in nearly every major process step with the exception of lithography. Key tools include those for chemical and physical vapor deposition, etching, chemical mechanical polishing, wafer- and reticle-inspection, critical dimension measurement, and defect-inspection scanning electron microscopes.

I use three key data points to gauge dividend equities or funds like Applied Materials Inc (AMAT):

(1) Price; (2) Dividends; (3) Returns. Those three basic keys best tell whether a company has made, is making, and will make money.

AMAT Price

AMAT's price per share closed at $58.38 Friday. A year ago their price was $44.91. Price rose $13.47 or just under 30% last year.

Assuming AMAT's stock trades in the range of $35 to $70 this next year, its recent $58.38 price might rise by $6.62 to reach $65.00 by June 29, 2021.

AMAT Dividends

AMAT's most recent declared quarterly dividend was $0.22 payable, September 10th. That $0.22 Q dividend equates to $0.88 annually for an annual yield of 1.51% at yesterday's $58.38 share price.

AMAT Gains?

Adding the $0.88 annual estimated dividend to my $6.62 optimistic estimate of AMAT price upside shows a $7.50 potential gross gain, per share, to be reduced by any costs to trade the shares.

If we put little under $1,000.00 today in Applied Materials we would buy 17 shares of AMAT stock.

A $10 broker fee paid half at purchase and half at sale could cost us about $0.59 per share.

Subtract that $0.59 brokerage cost from my estimated $7.50 gross gain per share results in a net gain of $6.91 X 17 shares = $117.47 for a 11.75% net gain on a $992.46 investment.

AMAT shows a possible 11.75% net gain including a 1.51% 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 Applied Materials Inc (AMAT) is worth it.