Nike

Nike’s (NKE) Q1 earnings beat was overshadowed by a disappointing Q2 outlook and the withdrawal of full-year guidance, Morgan Stanley said in a Wednesday note. “Decent [Q1] headline overshadowed by downbeat tone & forward outlook, in our view leaving bears with more to point to than bulls exiting 1Q,” Morgan Stanley said, adding that “FY guidance withdrawal & postponed Investor Day, in our view, highlight limited visibility & ongoing strategy uncertainty.” Morgan Stanley said recent developments reinforce its equal-weight thesis and suggest “a range-bound stock for some time.” While Nike beat Q1 earnings per share expectations at $0.70, challenges like weak retail sales and excess inventory led to a projected 8% to 10% year-over-year sales decline and an implied EPS of about $0.63 for Q2, below Street estimates, Morgan Stanley said. The Wall Street firm now projects fiscal 2025 EPS at $2.60, down from the previous $2.77, mainly due to […]

John Donahoe will retire as chief executive next month, capping a tumultuous tenure that caused the sneaker giant to lose ground to competitors. Donahoe will also step down from the board of directors. Company veteran Elliott Hill will succeed Donahoe as president and CEO starting Oct. 14. Hill served as consumer president until Donahoe took over in early 2020 and shuffled Nike’s leadership ranks. During the pandemic, Donahoe sought to focus on selling directly to consumers and Nike cut ties with longtime retail partners. The strategy backfired as the e-commerce boom faded. Nike shares rose 6.8% Friday.

Nike has named company veteran Thomas Clarke as a senior adviser to CEO John Donahoe, and John Hoke as president of innovation, according to Bloomberg. But there remains an ample amount of wood to chop for this executive team, Jefferies analysts say in a research note. This is a step in the right direction for the sneaker and apparel company, but it will most likely continue to face headwinds as it works to control its current product assortment and wholesale partnerships. This should lead to a pressured topline performance amid increased competition and softer customer reception to new product, the analysts add. Jefferies cuts its target price to $80 from $90 previously. Shares fall 0.2% to $73.28

Nike (NKE) needs to find its “next big thing” following the “highly disappointing” Q4 results as investors are focused on what it will take to boost the stock price, Wedbush Securities said in a note Wednesday. Analysts, including Tom Nikic, said that previously, products like the Air Vapormax and Air Max 270 helped Nike out of a rut in 2017. Introducing a new retro trend, like revitalizing the Dunk franchise in 2019, could also prove beneficial, following Adidas’s success with models like the Samba and Gazelle, analysts said. The company also needs to restore the exclusivity of the Jordan brand and the Dunk franchise, which have lost appeal due to oversaturation in the market. Nike must rebuild its relationship with wholesale partners to boost demand, according to the note. In June, there were only 16 “high heat” sneaker launches, a significant drop from 31 a year earlier. Among these, only

RBC Capital analyst Piral Dadhania maintained Nike Inc (NYSE:NKE) with a Sector Perform and lowered the price target from $100 to $75. Dadhania noted some complacency in assessing Nike’s equity story in recent months. A combination of the Fragmentation Hypothesis, turning the fashion cycle away from Nike’s core competency, and tougher comparatives than peers has created a perfect storm. Dadhania had been cautious about Nike, noting that the product transition would be a multi-quarter process with guidance risk, confirmed by material earnings dilution post fiscal 2025 guidance. Nike should emerge as a stronger company pursuing a more radical overhaul, which is necessary, as per the analyst. Nike has some heavy lifting to right-size key product franchises that are in decline and replace them with new styles, including refreshing entry-level ranges. Nike requires better product visibility for the analyst to turn positive. The analyst also noted potential 2025 second-half earnings risk.

Nike reported fourth-quarter results after market close Thursday Nike Inc. is entering a transitional year, say analysts, after the athletic-wear giant tempered its outlook amid wobbling consumer demand. Speaking on a conference call to discuss Nike’s (NKE) fourth-quarter results Thursday, CEO John Donahoe said said the company saw strong gains in performance products, although this was more than offset by declines in Nike’s lifestyle segment. These declines, he added, had “a pronounced impact” on Nike’s digital results. “These factors when combined with increased macro uncertainty and worsening foreign exchange have caused us to reduce our guidance for FY2025,” he added. “NKE’s 4Q24 print was very choppy, and the challenges facing the company are clearly more impactful than we (or management) expected,” wrote Wedbush analyst Tom Nikic, in a note released Friday. “After the company missed Q4 sales and meaningfully cut FY25 guidance, shares are likely to open meaningfully lower on

Nike’s latest guidance cut, its second in about six months, is severely straining management’s credibility, and the potential for changes within the C-suite are only adding more uncertainty to the outlook, Stifel analysts say in a research note. The company is now forecasting a mid-single-digit decline in sales for the fiscal year that started about a month ago, effectively pushing prospects for a growth inflection deeper into 2025 and asking investors to underwrite the success of still-unproven styles amid a risky discretionary spending backdrop through the rest of the year, the analysts say. They’re giving Nike a cut of their own, downgrading the stock to a hold rating. Shares open 18% lower at $77.13.

Nike is one of the most mentioned companies in the U.S. across all news items in the past 12 hours, according to Factiva data. The sneaker maker reported a drop in quarterly revenue and warned that sales could fall significantly in the current fiscal year, prompting a raft of Wall Street analysts to take a dimmer view of the company’s shares. Nike shares fall 17% to $77.36. Dow Jones & Co. owns Factiva.

Investors probably aren’t looking at Nike’s dramatic sell-off as a “buy the pullback” moment, Wedbush analysts Tom Nikic and Matt Quigley say in a research note. The drop to a multiyear low comes after the shoes and apparel maker reported disappointing fiscal 4Q results and gave a substantial cut to FY25 guidance, indicating that the challenges it faces are more impactful than management had expected, the analysts say. They’re maintaining an outperform rating on the stock with the expectation Nike will eventually sort things out, but the analysts imagine shares will “stay in the proverbial penalty box,” until new product innovations come to bear and management regains some investor trust. Nike plunges 18%.

The challenges facing Nike (NKE) are “clearly more impactful” than previously expected as the company lowered its full-year revenue outlook following a fiscal fourth-quarter sales miss, Wedbush Securities said Friday. The athletic footwear and apparel maker now anticipates a mid-single-digit percentage revenue decline in fiscal 2025, Chief Financial Officer Matthew Friend said during a late Thursday earnings conference call. The company previously expected annual growth. Friend told analysts that sales are expected to decline by high-single digits in the first half of the ongoing fiscal year, versus previous projections for a low-single-digit decrease. “We have been navigating several headwinds, which we now expect to have a more pronounced impact on fiscal 2025,” Friend said on the call. “Although the next few quarters will be challenging, we are confident that we are repositioning Nike to be more competitive with a more balanced portfolio to drive sustainable, profitable long-term growth.” For the

Nike’s (NKE) Q4 results were “very choppy” with the company missing its Q4 sales estimates and “meaningfully” cutting its fiscal 2025 guidance, Wedbush said in a note to clients on Friday. The company’s revenue fell to $12.61 billion for the three months ended May 31 from $12.83 billion a year earlier. Analysts polled by Capital IQ expected $12.86 billion. Earnings rose to $0.99 per share from $0.66 a year earlier. Analysts expected $0.83. Wedbush cut Nike’s price target to $97 from $115, while keeping its outperform rating. The firm also cut Nike’s fiscal 2025 EPS forecast to $3.06 from $3.89 and the fiscal 2026 EPS estimate to $3.48 from $4.35. “We remain at outperform due to our expectation that [Nike] will eventually ‘figure it out,’ but our conviction in our thesis has certainly taken a hit,” said Wednesday analysts, including Tom Nikic. The analysts noted that Nike now expects fiscal

Nike said it now expects revenue to drop this fiscal year as it cut its outlook amid lower traffic trends and worsening macroeconomic conditions in China. Shares of the sneaker and apparel company fall 12%, to $83, in after-hours trading. The stock has declined 13% since the beginning of the year. Nike on Thursday said it no longer expects to report revenue growth for the fiscal year ending in May 2025, and guided for revenue to be down in the mid-single digits. Analysts polled by FactSet anticipate revenue growth of 1.4%, to $52.11 billion. The company, which had most recently guided for a drop in first-half revenue in the low-single digits, said it now anticipates a decline in the high-single digits. For the first quarter, Nike forecasts a drop in revenue of about 10%. Wall Street had forecast a drop of 2.8%, to $12.57 billion, in the quarter. Nike is