Nike Stock Plummets To Below $40 As Wall Street Bulls Are Proven Dead Wrong About Athletic Giant

Nike stock has tumbled below $40 (£29.55) for the first time in roughly 12 years, leaving Wall Street's mostly bullish analysts under pressure as the athletic giant's turnaround stalls.

Shares slid 4.03% on Monday to close at $39.09 (£28.88), marking their lowest closing level since 2014 and extending a brutal slide that has erased roughly 78% of the stock's value since its record high of $177.51 (£131.17) in November 2021.

Nike's fiscal fourth-quarter results in late June showed revenue of $11.0 billion (£8.13 billion), down 1% on a reported basis and 4% on a currency-neutral basis, while diluted earnings per share of $0.72 (53p) included a one-time $0.52 (38p) per-share benefit from an expected tariff recovery.

Without that IEEPA tariff-recovery benefit, diluted EPS would have been approximately $0.20 (15p), underscoring how significantly the recovery affected headline earnings. Nike reported that the expected tariff recovery also provided an approximately 900-basis-point benefit to quarterly gross margin.

Nike Stock Plummets as Analysts Question Turnaround

The fresh lows come as several brokers have lowered their price targets, while JPMorgan downgraded the shares entirely. JPMorgan lowered Nike to Underweight earlier this month with a $40 (£29.55) target, citing concerns about the company's turnaround strategy and future profitability.

Jefferies, by contrast, still sees substantial upside, keeping a $75 (£55.41) target, but even Bernstein trimmed its price target to $68 (£50.24) from $72 (£53.20) despite maintaining an Outperform rating.

Other analysts have also turned more cautious. Wells Fargo cut its target to $40 (£29.55), while Rothschild & Co Redburn lowered its target to $37 (£27.34) in July.

At the current share price of about $39 (£28.81), even analysts maintaining higher targets are effectively betting on a significant recovery from Nike's current levels.

In other words, the market is split between those betting on a slow-burn recovery under CEO Elliott Hill and those who think the reset will cost more time and margin than investors are willing to tolerate.

Nike Stock Plummets Amid Execution Woes and Shifting Tastes

Hill, who returned as chief executive in October 2024, has been trying to stabilise the business after years of strategic missteps, including Nike's aggressive shift towards direct-to-consumer sales, which strained relationships with some wholesale partners.

During fiscal 2026, Nike continued implementing its 'Sport Offense' strategy, reorganising teams around individual sports and sharpening its focus on athletes and consumers, but the financial payoff has yet to produce sustained revenue growth.

Revenue for the full fiscal year came in at $46.4 billion (£34.29 billion), flat on a reported basis and down 2% on a currency-neutral basis, while net income slipped 3% to $3.1 billion (£2.29 billion). Nike Direct revenue fell 6% to $17.7 billion (£13.08 billion), including a 12% decline in Nike Brand Digital.

Nike has acknowledged that top-line headwinds remain, while tariff pressures, geopolitical uncertainty and cautious spending continue to complicate the turnaround.

Competitors are not waiting around. On Holding and other fast-growing rivals have been picking off style-conscious runners and gym-goers, while sneaker preferences have shifted rapidly as Nike works to refresh its product portfolio.

Even LeBron James, a longtime Nike-sponsored athlete, has spoken about the importance of brands maintaining close ties with younger consumers and their communities.

'You gotta get back into the roots,' he said.

'You gotta get back to being out in the inner city, having runners ... When I was coming up, you had people that was literally out in the communities talking to these younger generations, asking them what they like, what they don't like.'

Whether Hill's restructuring ultimately produces the hoped-for turnaround remains uncertain. Nike itself has acknowledged that it continues to face top-line headwinds while pointing to progress in performance products and structural changes across the business.

For now, investors are delivering a harsher verdict: Nike stock has fallen below $40 (£29.55) and reached its lowest closing level in about 12 years, shifting the burden of proof squarely to management.