Several Wall Street firms lowered their price targets on Nike Inc. (NKE) following the company's fiscal first-quarter earnings release, drawing broader analyst attention to the stock's near-term outlook. Quarterly results that topped analyst forecasts were not enough to lift the company's shares, as a revenue outlook below expectations weighed on investor sentiment, with CEO Elliott Hill noting that the recovery effort would require additional time to take hold.
By Friday morning's premarket session, NKE shares had lost close to 10% of their value, building on an 8.7% retreat recorded during Thursday's after-hours activity.
Wells Fargo's Ike Boruchow held an Equal Weight rating on Nike in place, noting that the company's first-quarter results had fallen short of what analysts had anticipated. The company stated that weakness in the Jordan, Sportswear, and China divisions has been weighing on Nike's overall results, adding that the outlook across those units remains difficult to read. A revised price target of $30 on the stock replaced the prior figure of $40, according to a note from Wells Fargo.
A Neutral rating remained in place at Citi, though the bank trimmed its price target to $32. According to Citi's analysis, Nike's first-quarter profit came in above expectations, with tighter cost management offsetting a shortfall in revenue. Citi noted that Nike's projected revenue for fiscal 2027 — pointing to a high-single-digit percentage decline — fell short of what analysts had anticipated. In a note to clients, Citi analysts characterised Nike's trajectory as one increasingly driven by expense reduction rather than growth, adding that the shares do not appear to justify a valuation premium over comparable companies.
Bank of America held its negative outlook on the stock while trimming the price target to $24 from the previous $30. Following its earnings release, the company acknowledged that a path toward recovering revenue lacked clear definition. The bank also trimmed its per-share earnings projections for fiscal 2027 and fiscal 2028 by 21% and 22%, respectively, while noting that Nike's valuation premium faces further pressure until the point at which revenue begins to recover comes into sharper focus.
Goldman Sachs held its rating on the stock at a neutral position while pulling the price target back to $30, down from the previous figure of $38. Analysts at the firm flagged that projected revenue targets for Nike's fiscal 2027 fell short of what the market had anticipated, pointing to softness across the Sportswear, Jordan, and China segments as the primary drag — one that outweighed the gains recorded within the Performance division. The Goldman analysis further indicated that Nike's Pace restructuring initiative and the associated debt reduction are both projected to weigh on profit margins and earnings across the fiscal 2027 and fiscal 2028 periods, with the central uncertainty centred on how much earnings capacity the company retains by fiscal 2028 — and whether fiscal 2027 marks the low point in that trajectory or an intermediate decline.
Koyfin data covering the 42 analysts who track NKE shows the majority — 26 in total — have assigned a Hold rating to the stock, with a further 10 assigned either a Buy or Strong Buy rating.
Quarterly sales at Nike came in at $11.2 billion for the first fiscal period, reflecting a 4% decline against the prior-year figure on a reported basis — or 5% once currency fluctuations are stripped out. Earnings per share on a diluted basis landed at $0.48, while the gross margin moved up by 60 basis points to reach 42.8%. Outlays covering sales operations and administrative functions came in at $3.9 billion, down 3% from the prior period.
Revenue flowing through the NIKE Direct channel contracted by 8% to reach $4.1 billion, while the NIKE Brand Digital segment posted a steeper 13% contraction over the same period. Sales across the Greater China region contracted by 26% on a currency-neutral basis, while the performance portfolio posted high-single-digit expansion. Closing out the quarter, Nike held stock on hand worth $7.8 billion — a figure approximately 3% below the same period a year earlier.
Heading into fiscal 2027, the company projected a revenue contraction in the high-single-digit percentage range, with adjusted diluted earnings per share anticipated to land between $1.15 and $1.35, a figure that sets aside roughly $0.15 tied to Pace-related restructuring costs. Hill acknowledged that Nike's recovery path spans multiple fronts — Sportswear, Jordan Brand, and Greater China among them — and that rebuilding across those areas will require considerable time and effort.
Trading platform data from Stocktwits showed that retail investors maintained a positive outlook on NKE throughout the prior day, while the volume of related posts moved from an already-elevated tier into the platform's top activity bracket. Nike's stock was trading at roughly 42% below its opening value for the year at the time of reporting.
