Nu Skin Enterprises, Inc. (NYSE:NUS) is about to trade ex-dividend in the next 3 days. The ex-dividend date occurs one day before the record date, which is the day on which shareholders need to be on the company's books in order to receive a dividend. The ex-dividend date is important because any transaction on a stock needs to have been settled before the record date in order to be eligible for a dividend. This means that investors who purchase Nu Skin Enterprises' shares on or after the 28th of August will not receive the dividend, which will be paid on the 9th of September.

The company's next dividend payment will be US$0.06 per share, on the back of last year when the company paid a total of US$0.24 to shareholders. Based on the last year's worth of payments, Nu Skin Enterprises has a trailing yield of 5.1% on the current stock price of US$4.74. We love seeing companies pay a dividend, but it's also important to be sure that laying the golden eggs isn't going to kill our golden goose! We need to see whether the dividend is covered by earnings and if it's growing.

AI is about to change healthcare. These 20 stocks are working on everything from early diagnostics to drug discovery. The best part - they are all under $10bn in marketcap - there is still time to get in early.

Dividends are usually paid out of company profits, so if a company pays out more than it earned then its dividend is usually at greater risk of being cut. Nu Skin Enterprises's dividend is not well covered by earnings, as the company lost money last year. This is not a sustainable state of affairs, so it would be worth investigating if earnings are expected to recover. With the recent loss, it's important to check if the business generated enough cash to pay its dividend. If Nu Skin Enterprises didn't generate enough cash to pay the dividend, then it must have either paid from cash in the bank or by borrowing money, neither of which is sustainable in the long term. The company paid out 108% of its free cash flow over the last year, which we think is outside the ideal range for most businesses. Cash flows are usually much more volatile than earnings, so this could be a temporary effect - but we'd generally want to look more closely here.

See our latest analysis for Nu Skin Enterprises

Click here to see how much of its profit Nu Skin Enterprises paid out over the last 12 months.

Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing?

When earnings decline, dividend companies become much harder to analyse and own safely. If earnings fall far enough, the company could be forced to cut its dividend. Nu Skin Enterprises was unprofitable last year and, unfortunately, the general trend suggests its earnings have been in decline over the last five years, making us wonder if the dividend is sustainable at all.

Another key way to measure a company's dividend prospects is by measuring its historical rate of dividend growth. Nu Skin Enterprises's dividend payments per share have declined at 16% per year on average over the past 10 years, which is uninspiring. While it's not great that earnings and dividends per share have fallen in recent years, we're encouraged by the fact that management has trimmed the dividend rather than risk over-committing the company in a risky attempt to maintain yields to shareholders.

Get our latest analysis on Nu Skin Enterprises's balance sheet health here.

Final Takeaway

From a dividend perspective, should investors buy or avoid Nu Skin Enterprises? It's hard to get used to Nu Skin Enterprises paying a dividend despite reporting a loss over the past year. Worse, the dividend was not well covered by cash flow. It's not the most attractive proposition from a dividend perspective, and we'd probably give this one a miss for now.

With that in mind though, if the poor dividend characteristics of Nu Skin Enterprises don't faze you, it's worth being mindful of the risks involved with this business. Every company has risks, and we've spotted 1 warning sign for Nu Skin Enterprises you should know about.

If you're in the market for strong dividend payers, we recommend checking our selection of top dividend stocks.