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! 

My subject today is a large cap specialty financial services company, The Western Union Co. Their trading ticker symbol is WU. This is my first report on WU

The Western Union Company was founded in 1851 and is headquartered in Denver, Colorado. Western Union provides domestic and international money transfers through its global network of about 500,000 outside agents. It is the largest money transfer company in the world and one of only two companies with a truly global agent network, with MoneyGram being the other.

I use three key data points to gauge dividend paying equities or funds like The Western Union Co. (WU):

(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.

WU Price

Western Union's price per share closed at $24.25 yesterday. A year ago its price was $18.01. In the past year its price grew $6.24 or 34.65%.

Assuming Western Union's stock trades in the range of $20.00 to $30.00 this next year, its recent $24.25 price could rise by $2.75 and get to $27.00 by mid-October, 2020, assuming its upward price momentum continues, slowing just a mite.

WU Dividends

Western Union's latest declared quarterly dividend was $0.20, paid September 30th. That $0.20 Q dividend equates to $0.80 annually and yields 3.3% based on yesterday's $24.25 closing price.

Gains?

Adding the $0.80 annual estimated dividend to my $2.75 estimate of WU's price upside shows a $3.55 potential gross gain, per share, which will be reduced by costs to trade these shares.

Say we put a little under $1,000.00 today into The Western Union Coat its recent $24.25 price, we'd buy 41 shares of WU.

A $10 broker fee paid half at purchase and half at sale could cost us about $0.24 per share.

Subtract that $0.24 brokerage cost from the estimated $3.55 gross estimated gain leaves a net gain of $3.31 X 41 shares = $135.71 or a 13.6% net gain on a $994.25 investment.

Therefore, WU now shows a possible net gain of 13.6% including a 3.3% 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 Western Union Co (WU) is worth your time and money.