It looks like Farmers National Banc Corp. (NASDAQ:FMNB) is about to go ex-dividend in the next four days. The ex-dividend date is usually set to be one business day before the record date, which is the cut-off date on which you must be present on the company's books as a shareholder in order to receive the 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. Therefore, if you purchase Farmers National Banc's shares on or after the 14th of March, you won't be eligible to receive the dividend, when it is paid on the 31st of March.

The company's next dividend payment will be US$0.17 per share. Last year, in total, the company distributed US$0.68 to shareholders. Calculating the last year's worth of payments shows that Farmers National Banc has a trailing yield of 4.9% on the current share price of US$13.79. If you buy this business for its dividend, you should have an idea of whether Farmers National Banc's dividend is reliable and sustainable. We need to see whether the dividend is covered by earnings and if it's growing.

See our latest analysis for Farmers National Banc

Dividends are typically paid from company earnings. If a company pays more in dividends than it earned in profit, then the dividend could be unsustainable. Farmers National Banc is paying out an acceptable 55% of its profit, a common payout level among most companies.

Generally speaking, the lower a company's payout ratios, the more resilient its dividend usually is.

Click here to see the company's payout ratio, plus analyst estimates of its future dividends.

Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing?

Stocks with flat earnings can still be attractive dividend payers, but it is important to be more conservative with your approach and demand a greater margin for safety when it comes to dividend sustainability. If earnings decline and the company is forced to cut its dividend, investors could watch the value of their investment go up in smoke. That explains why we're not overly excited about Farmers National Banc's flat earnings over the past five years. It's better than seeing them drop, certainly, but over the long term, all of the best dividend stocks are able to meaningfully grow their earnings per share.

Another key way to measure a company's dividend prospects is by measuring its historical rate of dividend growth. Farmers National Banc has delivered 19% dividend growth per year on average over the past 10 years.