Critical Contrast: Nu Skin Enterprises (NYSE:NUS) vs. Niagen Bioscience (NASDAQ:NAGE)

Nu Skin Enterprises (NYSE:NUS) and Niagen Bioscience (NASDAQ:NAGE) are both small-cap consumer staples companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, profitability, risk, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, dividends and earnings.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and recommmendations for Nu Skin Enterprises and Niagen Bioscience, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Nu Skin Enterprises	1	1	0	0	1.50
Niagen Bioscience	0	1	3	1	3.00

Niagen Bioscience has a consensus target price of $10.33, indicating a potential upside of 231.20%. Given Niagen Bioscience’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Niagen Bioscience is more favorable than Nu Skin Enterprises.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

82.8% of Nu Skin Enterprises shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 15.4% of Niagen Bioscience shares are owned by institutional investors. 2.8% of Nu Skin Enterprises shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 10.0% of Niagen Bioscience shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Nu Skin Enterprises and Niagen Bioscience”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Nu Skin Enterprises	$1.49 billion	0.18	$160.20 million	$1.10	5.00
Niagen Bioscience	$129.42 million	1.92	$17.38 million	$0.18	17.33

Nu Skin Enterprises has higher revenue and earnings than Niagen Bioscience. Nu Skin Enterprises is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Niagen Bioscience, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Volatility and Risk

Nu Skin Enterprises has a beta of 0.98, indicating that its stock price is 2% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Niagen Bioscience has a beta of 2.09, indicating that its stock price is 109% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Nu Skin Enterprises and Niagen Bioscience’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Nu Skin Enterprises	3.78%	7.47%	4.21%
Niagen Bioscience	12.39%	17.95%	13.17%

Summary

Niagen Bioscience beats Nu Skin Enterprises on 11 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Nu Skin Enterprises

Nu Skin Enterprises, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, engages in the development and distribution of various beauty and wellness products worldwide. It offers skin care devices, cosmetics, and other personal care products, including ageLOC LumiSpa and ageLOC LumiSpa iO; and nutricentials skin care products. The company also provides wellness products, such as LifePak nutritional supplements, ageLOC TR90 weight management system, and Beauty Focus Collagen+. In addition, it is involved in the research and product development of skin care products and nutritional supplements. The company sells its products under the Nu Skin, Pharmanex, and ageLOC brands through retail stores, website, digital platforms, and independent direct sellers and marketers, as well as a service center. Nu Skin Enterprises, Inc. was founded in 1984 and is headquartered in Provo, Utah.

About Niagen Bioscience

Niagen Bioscience, Inc. is a global bioscience company, which engages in acquiring, developing, and commercializing proprietary-based ingredient technologies. It is pioneering research on nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+). The company’s patent portfolio includes Nicotinamide Riboside (NR) and other NAD+ precursors, which are commercialized as the flagship ingredient Niagen. It operates through the following segments: Consumer Products, Ingredients, and Analytical Reference Standards and Services. The Consumer Products segment provides finished dietary supplement products that contain the firm’s proprietary ingredients directly to consumers as well as to distributors. The Ingredients segment supplies ingredients as raw materials to the manufacturers of consumer products. The Analytical Reference Standards and Services segment includes supply of phytochemical reference standards and other research and development services. The company was founded by Mark S. Germain and Frank L. Jaksch, Jr. in 1999 and is headquartered in Los Angeles, CA.