Nike’s Curious Rally
Nike cut guidance again and shares moved higher anyway. Plus: Skechers’ smart ground game and Radical Airflow’s early sellout signal.
Worth Noting…
New York Knicks forward OG Anunoby’s Skechers SKX Nexus player edition, featuring the team’s orange-and-blue color palette, was made available for pre-order on the brand’s website and quickly sold out. Priced at $120 and excluded from discounts, the shoe is scheduled to ship in October 2026.
Non-player versions of the SKX Nexus are priced at $100 and currently offered with a buy-one-get-one-50%-off promotion. The shoe is available in 10 colorways; some are sold out in multiple sizes, though most remain available in full size runs.
I have a theory about Skechers’ performance product worn by professional athletes. Teenagers, for the most part, are not buying it because they are more vulnerable to peer pressure. (See Karl-Anthony Towns ribbing Anunoby for wearing “Skechies” during the Knick’s championship press conference.) But the athlete halo may work differently for older consumers, who are less concerned with brand heat and are looking for a nice looking, well made shoe that’s not breaking the budget.
Kudos, too, to Skechers for seeing a customer other athletic brands often ignore. Skechers is the only athletic brand that advertises (above) at my local F train stop in Brooklyn and has done so for multiple years. And yes, I see plenty of my neighbors wearing the brand, many of them adults from immigrant communities, though never teenagers. The customer is more often 40 and up, which is part of why Foot Locker, JD Sports and Dick’s Sporting Goods choose for the most part not to stock the brand.
That gets at what Skechers is really good at. It is not chasing the coolest kid on the block. It’s targeting the less cool, more practical consumer the major performance brands often seemingly want little to do with: someone who doesn’t want to spend over $80 and doesn’t need or care about approval from sneaker culture.
Nike has a hit on its hands with its Radical Airflow textile with all six silhouettes sold out on the brand’s website. Shout out to The Sweat Lookbook’s Lee Gandorf who correctly predicted Serena Williams would debut a Radical Airflow fit during her return to competetive play at Wimbledon. Williams wore a custom jacket, top and skirt which aren’t yet available to purchase. World No. 1 tennis player Jannik Sinner also wore a Radical Airflow jacket when walking onto the court at Wimbledon.
“My money is on Serena Williams debuting a Radical Airflow tennis dress. It would be a brilliant spin on tennis whites, and fitting considering that one of the last non-ACG athletes to wear the tech was GOAT Eliud Kipchoge at the NYC Marathon.”
Mitch Modell’s attempt to revive the Modell’s name has already hit a snag. After the Knicks’ playoff run helped stir nostalgia for the former sporting goods chain, which was long known as a go-to spot for licensed jerseys, Modell launched MitchModells.com. Unfortunately for him, the Modell’s name is no longer his to use. It is now owned by Raj Gupta of Omni Retail Enterprises, who reportedly had entered negotiations to sell it back to Modell for $1 million before talks ultimately fell apart.
Modell has since relaunched under MitchyMos.com, where he is selling five t-shirts priced at $25 with free shipping and has also posted a petition asking supporters to help him win his name back. The petition reads:
“After his family's name became synonymous with sporting goods for more than 131 years, Mitchell made multiple attempts to purchase the family brand back and continue its legacy. When those efforts were unsuccessful, he launched MitchellModells.com to reconnect with customers who had supported his family for generations.”
For anyone who worked for Modell’s, or ever dealt with Mitch, not a single thing about this is surprising. He is an original, an old-school retail character from a vanishing era, the kind they really don’t make anymore.
Nike Earnings: A Beat, a Cut and a Curious Rally
Nike reported fourth-quarter earnings on Tuesday that followed a familiar script: better-than-expected headline numbers paired with another cautious outlook. Revenue came in slightly ahead of consensus at $11 billion (down 4% constant currency), while earnings per share of $0.72 beat by a wider margin. Some of the EPS upside reflected a previously disclosed tariff-refund benefit, though excluding that $0.52 per-share lift, Nike still would have cleared consensus. At the end of the day either way, a beat is a beat.
Alas, in what has become something of a signature under Chief Financial Officer Matt Friend, Nike once again lowered its revenue outlook. The company has now reduced guidance for two consecutive quarters, extending a reset that began with its surprise FY25 guide cut in June 2024.
Following the call, sell side analysts largely stayed put on ratings, but not on valuation, with at least 14 firms cutting price targets following Nike’s fourth-quarter report, compared with just two maintaining targets and none raising them. And yet, after a lower outlook, continued China weakness and a wave of price-target cuts, something unexpected happened: Nike shares moved higher and as of today are up approximately 7% since earnings.
