Nike stock falls to a decade low as Wall Street stops believing the turnaround story

Nike shares just hit their lowest price in more than 12 years, and Bank of America's newest call, an Underperform rating with a $30 target, tells you Wall Street thinks the bottom still isn't in.

Nike stock touched $35.22 on September 25, its lowest level in more than 12 years. Bank of America cut its rating from Neutral to Underperform and slashed its price target from $47 to $30. The bank also trimmed its fiscal 2027 and 2028 earnings estimates by 11% and 12%. Nike shares are down more than 40% so far in 2026, and the stock has now lost roughly 80% of its value since its 2021 peak.

You don't get a call like this from a bank that still believes management's story. BofA's note laid out something specific and uncomfortable: negative sales growth expected through fiscal 2027, driven by a widening gap between Nike's wholesale shipments and what's actually selling through at retail. In plain terms, Nike has been pushing inventory into stores faster than shoppers are buying it off shelves. That's the kind of imbalance that eventually forces markdowns, and markdowns eat margin.

There's a dividend problem buried in the numbers too. BofA's fiscal 2027 EPS estimate of $1.43 implies a payout ratio around 107%: Nike would be handing shareholders more in dividends than it actually earns. A company doesn't sustain that indefinitely. Either the dividend gets cut, or the turnaround has to work fast, and right now neither looks likely on BofA's timeline.

Elliott Hill took over as CEO in October 2024 promising to fix Nike's oversaturated market and rebuild ties with wholesale partners after years of an aggressive direct-to-consumer push under his predecessor. Some of that plan is working exactly as designed: wholesale revenue grew 6% as Hill rebuilt relationships with retailers, a deliberate reversal of the old strategy. But Nike Direct revenue fell 6%, and digital sales specifically dropped 12%. That tells you the DTC retreat came with real costs, not just a strategic shift on paper.

China is the piece that refuses to turn. Greater China revenue fell 11% year over year to $5.9 billion. The most recent quarter alone saw China sales drop 12% to $1.3 billion, the eighth straight quarterly decline in the region. Hill has told analysts Nike is committed to serving Chinese consumers through sport and is building local product creation in China, with locally designed, developed and manufactured product aimed at the 2027 holiday season. That's more than a year away. Markets rarely wait that patiently.

Meanwhile adidas is taking the share Nike is losing, and doing it steadily. Adidas grew its global athletic footwear market share to 12.2% in 2025 while Nike's slipped to 22.9%, the third straight year of decline for the Swoosh. Adidas has leaned into the momentum from the 2026 World Cup and a new ultra-lightweight marathon shoe that set a headline-grabbing race result, and it's translating into real consumer sentiment gains, not just marketing buzz.

Frankly, the hardest part of this story for Nike bulls is the pile-up: no single number, just the accumulation of them. A weak quarter is a story. A weak quarter plus eight straight declining quarters in your second-biggest market is a pattern. Add a rival gaining share, a dividend math problem, and a Wall Street bank actively telling clients to sell, and it's something closer to a verdict. Other analysts share the doubts. But BofA is the loudest voice saying out loud what the stock price has been signaling for months: this turnaround is taking longer than anyone banking on Hill's plan expected. The newer product launches Nike keeps pointing to haven't yet outweighed the drag from its larger, older lifestyle lines.

Nike still has real assets working in its favor, a wholesale reset that's showing up in the numbers, and a CEO with a specific plan for China. But plans take quarters to prove out, and Nike is running low on quarters before more of its skeptics start looking like they called it right.

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