Bearish on NKE due to falling sales, rising discounts, and weak fundamentals; current valuation assumes a growth recovery not evident in recent earnings commentary.

I should also complain about Nike. Dude, Nike. Lauren didn't sign up as a Nike. like we are. She's a Nike member. I'm a Nike member. And then Nike uh is like, "Oh, in order to get free returns, you couldn't have used guest checkout."

So, they sent Lauren a shipping label to return these shoes that she bought because she's like, "Oh, okay. Free returns, whatever." They give her a shipping label and we're like, "Print it out."

So, she prints out the shipping label or whatever and, you know, bring it to UPS and you scan it. and uh Lauren who was busy with all the children sent you know one of the wonderful people helping us but you know they didn't know what was being shipped or or whatever it's all packaged up already and they ended up charging $81 for UPS uh like they charged us $81 through the Nike shipping label they gave us for their damn box that was already packaged up to send back $100 worth of shoes for a free return and they said oh yeah well we would have covered that and probably gotten their discounts or whatever if you had just signed in and checked out as a member.

It's like, can you apply it after the fact? Like, we're obviously a member. Just quick checked out as guest. Like, we're a customer. They're like, nah, f you, but we could give you 10% off on your next order.

We're like, well, screw you, Nike. You guys are jackasses.

And that's how companies fail because these guys, like, we already know their stock is like dog SH9T. We already know that. And rightfully so, like their pricing power has gone to trash.

We should honestly go look at their last earnings report because I haven't looked at their last earnings report yet. Uh so it's like, well then you may as well keep the shoes, but you know, too late. All right. So, let's go see quarterly earnings.

I've got revenues going down 5%. Now, fortunately, cost of sales actually went down. That's good. Finally, cost of sales went down a little bit better. But let me see if that's rounding.

Like, let's see how much rounding they did. 11213 divided by 11720. That's four. That's actually 4.32% of a decline. Negative 4.32% decline. See, look at them hide the percentage here so you don't do the math.

Bastards. 6777 5.33. Okay, there you go. So, their costs in fairness did go down more, which actually did give them some margin. Uh, first time I've actually seen margin start going up despite uh falling sales.

Now, demand now, but this is the problem. Okay, I'll show you the problem right here. And this is the beef that I've had with Nike is I've been asked about Nike like 50,000 times over the last year.

And every single time I've dumped on this company and it just got kept going down and down and down. What Here's one of the big problems right here. You see this demand creation expense.

Okay, you know what that means, right? Ads, baby. Uh, and 5% more on ads to shrink sales. -4.32%. That's negative 9.3% leverage on ads, right? So, they're running ads, spending 5% more on ads or discounts or discounts, and they're getting less ROI on that.

So now in fairness they've also cut their overall opex because they cut their overhead 6%. Uh cutting um opex with AI probably. So also able to start uh improving margins here but also ripping off customers like total scum. um with returns.

Orin's return story. Uh f you Nike. Like some AI bot is going to be like, "Kevin, don't slander Nike." And then I'm going to be like, "Bitch, an opinion is not slander."

Uh, okay. All right. So, so really, you know, what what gets really interesting is if you go into uh let's see here uh the earnings call. So, let's see if they're actually getting like what what you have to look at in the earnings call for Nike.

And I don't know, I haven't gone into it yet, but you have to look for discounts. And it's going to tell you a little bit about the consumer, honestly. Like, if they start saying things like, "Hey, it's turning around or whatever."

That's good. Historically, they have not been saying that. The writing has been bearish on the wall. And I don't want to sound bearish on the stock. I mean, I have been bearish on the stock, but I don't want to sound bearish on the stock because of Lauren's experience.

That's just a coincidence. Earnings call. I still think it's scummy, but whatever.

Okay. All right. So, all we need to do here is type in discount. Aha. At the same time, we're taking discounts and resetting the marketplace. Uh-huh. Gross margin. We're probably not going to provide guidance for gross margin.

Yeah, of course you're not going to provide guidance for for gross margin. There are puts and takes. We're making fairly significant moves in our supply chain and our sourcing program today.

That is actually bolstering gross margin. Yeah. Okay. But that doesn't necessarily mean your consumers are buying more. At the same time, we're taking discounts and resetting the marketplace.

Uh-huh. Yeah. So getting lower which is dampening gross mar gross margins over time. Okay. So basically basically we're firing people in opex and we're uh forcing price cuts at our suppliers supply chain because we're sucking wind.

Um, at the same time, we're discounting our shoes to hopefully find equilibrium. Equilibrium. Oh, it's 1 L. It's 1 L. I guess that makes sense. Okay. Uh, I mean, that's pretty bad already. Nike, just sell it.

We are eliminating distribution channels that are not aligned with our marketplace strategy. And that sounds like some woke crap, which will decrease the deep discounting from our brands.

Right. This is for greater China. We will anchor the digital marketplace in China around fewer high-quality experiences. Man, you guys aren't like I don't care if you guys are a an experience. People are going to buy these shoes online.

Gross margin. Uh, this was because of our supply chain cost management and foreign exchange tailwinds. Come on, dude. So, the margin only went up because of uh the supply chain stuff and FX adjustments.

That's how you guys got margin. Oh, come on. Offset by discounts and channel mix, bro. That's AS because channel mix means now people are buying even less expensive products at your company.

So when they do buy at Nike, they're spending less.

Ah, increasing investments and demand creation expense, right? Yes, guys, we are not spending on ads. How dare you say we are spending on ads? We are investing in demand creation. Screw you, Nike.

Let's go look at uh let's go look at what this puppy's actually worth right now. All right, here we go. So, we got Nike, Nike, Nike, Nike, Nike, Nike, Nike. And then we're going to move on from the Nikes and move on.

There you go. Uh 171. Whoops. 137 EPS. End of year. Oh, they're expecting to get back to growth. No way. Wow. to get back to growth finally starting next year on EPS. Wow. Could it be the turning point?

That's interesting. This is I think the first time I've actually seen that. So, what's it trading for right now? Let's go find out. Nice $3. divided by 1.37 25 PE ratio. Okay, it's trading for about a 1.3 PEG ratio.

Not bad on valuation if uh uh if growth does return. Not bad if they can get growth back. and the forecasts are already pricing in that growth is going to come back. That's interesting because that's not what I'm seeing in the earnings call. So, h yeah, I don't know about that.

What are their net margins? Well, their net margins are forecast to be Oh, it's horrible. Net margins are expected to grow just to 8%. 8% net margins by 2031. forecast 4% net margins next year which is very low um Dell levels without the AI that justifies maybe a 1.4 1.3 to 1.4 four peg.

Yeah, honestly, probably closer to 1.3, which means it's maybe 1.3 divided by 1.13 15% low on current expectations for a return to growth. So, interesting, interesting, interesting.

Okay. Yeah, I just think there's too much competition. I I agree with you. Like there there are people that are into the hookah, there are people that are into the buaha, uh there are people that are into the on uh and then all honestly like you know a host of other Chinese uh options online like yeah bad news amazing products I wear running shoes for every service.

The new ACG trail shoes are awesome. The hell's that? ACG trail shoe. Oh, look. Then we're getting we're going to get off this. Oh, okay. This is very similar to like what Brooks does.

I feel like I feel like that's their competition is they're they're trying to pick up some of the lessons learned, so to speak.