Nike craters after issuing weak revenue guidance

Sportswear kingpin Nike is tumbling on Wednesday morning after saying it doesn’t expect to grow sales this year.

On its fiscal Q3 earnings call, management said that revenue is expected to drop 2% to 4% in the current quarter, and that overall they “expect revenues to be down low-single-digits versus the prior year, with gains in North America offset by declines in Greater China.” That’s a disappointment to analysts, who were anticipating 2% growth in Q4 and even more in the latter stages of the year, per Bloomberg.

Nike’s Q3 sales in China — where the company earns about 15% of its revenue — fell 7% to $1.62 billion. The company had issued weak guidance for this quarter considering continued softness in the region. That’s its seventh straight quarter of sales declines in the market. While this quarter’s was decline was less than feared, management warned that more pain is in the offing.

Nike’s turnaround effort “is complex work, and parts of it are taking longer than I’d like,” said CEO Elliott Hill.

Nike’s fiscal Q3 results (the three months ended February) were solid at the headline level:

• Earnings of $0.35 per share, comfortably above the Wall Street consensus estimate of $0.29 per share compiled by FactSet.

• $11.28 billion in total revenue, roughly in line with the $11.26 billion estimate.

But the gloomy sales outlook has Wall Street analysts souring on the stock:

• JPMorgan downgraded the shares to “neutral” from “overweight” and cut its price target to $52 from $86.

• Citi reduced its target price to $53 from $65,

• Stifel lowered its price target to $56 from $65,

• Truist reduced its price target to $57 from $69, and

• Barclays cut its target price to $67 from $73.

Nike shares are trading near decade lows this month, as tariffs continue to weigh on profits and shipping costs rise amid the war with Iran. As of Tuesday’s close, the stock was down 17% year to date.