Nike cleared the low bar Wall Street had set for it, and investors sold the stock anyway. The world’s largest sportswear company reported fiscal fourth-quarter revenue of $11.0 billion late on Tuesday, 30 June 2026, edging past analyst forecasts of roughly $10.86 billion, and posted a profit that jumped more than fourfold from a year earlier. Then shares slid as much as 8 percent in extended trading before clawing back part of the drop. The disconnect tells you most of what you need to know about where this turnaround stands: the numbers are stabilising, but the growth engine still isn’t running.
Start with the headline profit, because it is more mirage than milestone. Nike’s fourth-quarter net income came in at $1.069 billion, up 407 percent from $211 million a year ago, and diluted earnings per share reached $0.72 against just $0.14 last year. Almost all of that swing is one-off. Of the $0.72, some $0.52 was a benefit tied to the expected recovery of tariffs Nike paid under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act — duties the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unauthorised on 20 February 2026. Strip out the roughly $986 million refund the company now expects to collect, and adjusted earnings were about 20 cents a share. That still beat the 13 cents analysts penciled in, but it reframes the quarter: the profit “surge” is a courtroom windfall; the underlying business did not surge.
The revenue line makes the point plainly. Fourth-quarter sales fell 1 percent as reported and 4 percent on a currency-neutral basis. Gross margin looked spectacular at 49.2 percent, up 890 basis points, but roughly 900 of those points came from the same tariff recovery. In other words, both of the quarter’s flashiest figures lean on an accounting event rather than on demand.
China remains the wound that won’t close. Revenue in Greater China dropped to $1.297 billion, down 12 percent as reported and 17 percent excluding currency swings — the steepest fall of any region and the single biggest drag on the quarter. Chinese shoppers have drifted toward homegrown brands such as Anta and Li-Ning for the better part of two years, and this result offers little evidence the bleeding has stopped. North America, at least, pulled in the other direction: sales there rose 3 percent to $4.832 billion, enough to keep the overall NIKE Brand roughly flat. Europe, the Middle East and Africa slipped 1 percent to $2.975 billion, while Asia Pacific and Latin America crept up 1 percent. Converse cratered again, down 32 percent to $244 million.
- North America — $4.83B, up 3%
- EMEA — $2.98B, down 1%
- Asia Pacific & Latin America — $1.60B, up 1%
- Greater China — $1.30B, down 12%
Chief executive Elliott Hill, who returned to the company in late 2024 to lead its recovery, framed the year as foundation-laying rather than payoff.
“In fiscal 2026, we took decisive actions to strengthen the foundation of NIKE, Inc. and reposition our business for long-term growth. While we continue to face top-line headwinds, we’re encouraged by progress in performance product and are focused on consistent execution, improved profitability and scaling our wins to realize our full potential.”
Elliott Hill, President and CEO, NIKE, Inc.
On the call with analysts he was blunter, conceding that overall, the results aren’t there yet
and pointing to sportswear and Jordan streetwear, where he said sell-through remains challenged. That candour is the point of Hill’s pitch: the fix runs through what Nike now calls its “Sport Offense,” a reorganisation of thousands of staff into teams built around individual sports rather than product silos, meant to put running, basketball and football back at the centre of the brand. Chief Financial Officer Matthew Friend struck the same disciplined-in-a-storm note, saying the company delivered results in line with our expectations
in what he called an increasingly challenging operating environment.
For the full year the picture is one of a giant treading water. Revenue was essentially flat at $46.4 billion, net income eased 3 percent to $3.1 billion, and full-year diluted earnings slipped to $2.10 a share. Jordan Brand products, long the company’s cultural crown jewel, brought in $7.03 billion, down 3 percent. Nike still returned about $609 million to shareholders through dividends in the quarter, a 3 percent bump, and management reiterated prior guidance pointing to roughly flat earnings through the first half of fiscal 2027, with a slightly positive gross margin expected in the current quarter.
Which brings the story back to that after-hours slide. This was never going to be a quarter judged on whether Nike beat a diminished consensus — the shares had already lost close to 45 percent over the prior year and were scraping levels last seen more than a decade ago. The bar was whether inventory, margins or China would show enough of a turn to justify betting on a rebound. Instead the market got a beat propped up by a tariff refund, another double-digit China decline, and an outlook that promises stability rather than acceleration. Traders had priced in bad news; what unsettled them was the absence of a catalyst to price in something better. Hill has told a coherent story about how the comeback happens. Investors, for one more quarter, are declining to pay for the sequel before they see it.
Sources: Nike Q4 FY2026 earnings release (SEC), CNBC and TradingKey. Related archyde coverage: the week-ahead preview and the court ruling that upended the IEEPA tariffs.
