{"id":16157,"date":"2024-06-21T11:45:29","date_gmt":"2024-06-21T17:45:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/?p=16157"},"modified":"2024-06-21T11:45:29","modified_gmt":"2024-06-21T17:45:29","slug":"nike-earnings-preview-fiscal-25-guidance-is-all-that-matters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/?p=16157","title":{"rendered":"Nike Earnings Preview: Fiscal &#8217;25 Guidance is All That Matters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Nike (NKE) the athletic apparel and footwear giant whose stock has fallen about 50% from its late November, 2021, highs of $179, reports their fiscal Q4 &#8217;24 earnings next Thursday night, June 27th, after the market close.<\/p>\n<p>The stock has been basing in the high $80&#8217;s, low $90&#8217;s since the third week of April.<\/p>\n<p>Sell-side consensus is expecting $0.84 in earnings per share, and $1.54 billion in operating income on $12.85 billion in revenue, for expected y-o-y (yoy) growth of 27%, 26% and 0% or flat revenue growth. (Nike has an easy comp for operating income vs fiscal Q4 &#8217;23.)<\/p>\n<p>The expected 26% operating income growth is only the 2nd time in the last 11 quarters that Nike has generated yoy growth in operating income, which is pretty surprising. A lot of that operating income drag could have been the inventory glut, but that is now history and discussed lower in the preview.<\/p>\n<p>No question the sports giant has struggled since Covid struck. Here&#8217;s Nike&#8217;s average revenue, operating income and EPS growth since the stock peaked in November &#8217;21 (10 quarters):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Revenue growth: +5%<\/li>\n<li>Operating income growth: -8%<\/li>\n<li>EPS growth: -1%<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the issue from modeling Nike&#8217;s spreadsheet:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/NikeCommonSizeIncomeStatementasofq324.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-16159\" src=\"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/NikeCommonSizeIncomeStatementasofq324-300x47.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"47\" srcset=\"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/NikeCommonSizeIncomeStatementasofq324-300x47.png 300w, https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/NikeCommonSizeIncomeStatementasofq324-1024x159.png 1024w, https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/NikeCommonSizeIncomeStatementasofq324-150x23.png 150w, https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/NikeCommonSizeIncomeStatementasofq324-768x119.png 768w, https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/NikeCommonSizeIncomeStatementasofq324-1536x239.png 1536w, https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/NikeCommonSizeIncomeStatementasofq324-1600x249.png 1600w, https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/NikeCommonSizeIncomeStatementasofq324.png 1867w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>This &#8220;common size&#8221; income statement from Nike shows that SG&amp;A expenses have risen modestly since late 2019, while operating income has slowly eroded since late 2019.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not the end of the world, but it could be indicative of the &#8220;stale brand&#8221; and the stale footwear that Nike CEO John Donahoe wants to invigorate.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Technical look at the stock:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/NKEmonthlychart62124.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-16160\" src=\"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/NKEmonthlychart62124-300x149.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"149\" srcset=\"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/NKEmonthlychart62124-300x149.png 300w, https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/NKEmonthlychart62124-1024x509.png 1024w, https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/NKEmonthlychart62124-150x75.png 150w, https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/NKEmonthlychart62124-768x382.png 768w, https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/NKEmonthlychart62124-1536x764.png 1536w, https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/NKEmonthlychart62124-1600x796.png 1600w, https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/NKEmonthlychart62124.png 1916w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>What&#8217;s intriguing with Nike&#8217;s monthly chart, is that the stock will clear congestion if it can trade up and through $100, and then has room to run until the 50-month moving average or roughly $120 &#8211; $121 per share.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe more importantly, if you look at the bottom 1\/3rd panel, Nike is now more oversold on the monthly chart than it was in 2008.<\/p>\n<p>The problem from the fundamental perspective is that the brand truly could be stale and worn out i.e. tired. If that&#8217;s the case, it will likely remain bouncing around at these levels.<\/p>\n<p>The late September, &#8217;22 &#8211; early October &#8217;22 lows for the stock were in the $80 &#8211; $82 price level.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s your exit price or loss limit, since a trade through that level on heavy volume means much deeper problems at the &#8220;Swoosh&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Valuation:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>The issue with Nike, both with fiscal &#8217;24 and fiscal &#8217;25 is that Nike expects just 1% revenue growth for both years, and while there is just 1 quarter left in fiscal &#8217;24, the fact that fiscal &#8217;25 consensus (started June 1 &#8217;24) expects 1% revenue growth to generate 4% EPS growth, (down from an expected 16% EPS growth this year) continues to tell us that analysts are loathe to lift numbers and don&#8217;t expect much to change.<\/p>\n<p>Nike&#8217;s fiscal &#8217;25 guide will be critical on next Thursday night&#8217;s conference call.\u00a0 For fiscal &#8217;25, the current consensus is expecting $3.88 in EPS on $52.1 billion in revenue. Again, Nike should be generating better than 1% revenue growth.<\/p>\n<p>At $95 per share, Nike is trading at 24x expected EPS of $3.88 on expected revenue growth of 1%. That really is not much to excite investors.<\/p>\n<p>Nike is also trading about 2.5x revenue and 18x and 21x cash-flow and free-cash-flow (ex cash).<\/p>\n<p>As a valuation positive, Morningstar has a $129 fair value estimate on the stock, which &#8211; according to Morningstar&#8217;s model &#8211; leaves the stock trading at a 25% &#8211; 26% discount to fair value.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Summary \/ conclusion: <\/strong><\/em>If fiscal &#8217;25 turns out like the current sell-side consensus expects, then Nike will have generated 2 consecutive years of 1% revenue growth. That&#8217;s not good. This blogs financial model goes all the way back to 1992, and Nike has experienced single years with 1% revenue growth, but never 2 years in a row.<\/p>\n<p>Fiscal &#8217;25 guidance will be critical on the call.<\/p>\n<p>The inventory glut, which many retailers experienced in late &#8217;21 and through &#8217;22, Nike has now fixed, so the last 4 quarters, Nike&#8217;s yoy revenue growth has exceeded yoy inventory growth nicely. An inventory glut like that is ultimately a drag on cash-flow.<\/p>\n<p>China is roughly 17% of Nike&#8217;s total revenue, and 53% of EBIT (which is how Nike discloses their operating income) but it&#8217;s misleading since the Global Brand Divisions and Corporate are big negative numbers within EBIT disclosure. The US and China EBIT sum to 157% of total EBIT thanks to how Nike discloses it, so it&#8217;s analytical value is questionable.<\/p>\n<p>Still, China is important to Nike. Keeping an eye on China&#8217;s economic data, I don&#8217;t think that much has changed for China growth prospects the last few years.<\/p>\n<p>There is nothing compelling yet to cause investors to jump aggressively into accumulating the stock. Be patient, and watch the numbers.<\/p>\n<p>One reason I worry about Nike as many seem to be from an &#8220;obsolescence&#8221; perspective, is Nike&#8217;s reporting with earnings. Nike is one of the few major brands, retailers and iconic companies that doesn&#8217;t report the cash-flow statement with earnings. It sounds like something that isn&#8217;t even worth mentioning, but since the 1990&#8217;s and the passing of Reg FD (Full Disclosure) companies have been increasingly reporting the cash-flow statement with the earnings release. All the mega-cap tech companies report the statement of cash-flow with the quarterly earnings release. Nike is still stuck in the dark ages, when considered from that perspective. Investors still need to wait 3 &#8211; 4 weeks for the 10-Q to be released to see the actual numbers.<\/p>\n<p>Previous articles on Nike (<a href=\"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/?p=15511\">here<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/?p=15553\">here<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/?p=15037\">here<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nike (NKE) the athletic apparel and footwear giant whose stock has fallen about 50% from its late November, 2021, highs&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nke"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16157"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16157\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16183,"href":"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16157\/revisions\/16183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}