Nike – FY2026 Valuation

👟Business Overview

🎯Key Metrics

Total: 5/17

  • +1 ✅ Projected Operating Margin: 12.65%
  • +0 ⚠️ Projected 5-Year Revenue CAGR: 3.09%
  • +1 ✅ Last 5-Year ROIC: 18.60%
  • +1 ✅ Estimated Cost of Capital: 10.05% (less than ROIC)
  • +1 ✅ Last 5-Year Shares Outstanding CAGR: -1.28%
  • -1 ❌ Projected 5-Year EPS CAGR: 6.22% (lower than 10% represents a minus)
  • +0 ⚠️ Projected 5-Year Dividend CAGR: 6.19%
  • +1 ✅ Moody’s Rating: A2
  • +2 ✅✅ Morningstar Moat: Wide
  • -1 ❌ Morningstar Uncertainty: High

Nike runs with a solid operating margin above the ~10% mark showing it still has some competitive advantage over competitors even with the maturity of its business and a highly competitive industry. Despite currently having a flat revenue growth, its projections point to a slightly below than economy growth rate of ~3% over the next couple of years. The fact that the ROIC is almost double its cost of capital is good to see.

However, there are some risks for the company, represented by the High uncertainty rating, showing that Nike, despite having a history of success, needs to keep reinventing itself providing, as always, great products to its clients.

To be honest, this latest update on the company left me a bit dissapointed, however it is to be expected, and I’m hoping, with caution, for a 2027-2028 turnaround given the solid moat and brand that the company still have.

📈Business Valuation

To calculate the intrinsic value of the company I’ll use multiple methods:

  • Discounted Cash Flows (DCF) – Intrinsic value is estimated by projecting its free cash flows over the next 10 years and discounting them to present value using the estimated cost of capital;
  • EPS Growth – the fair value is estimated by projected the Earnings Per Share CAGR for the next 5 Years and then, given its current and historic values of PE, come up with a PE for the 5th Year. This will give us its price 5 Years from now using the formula: Price = EPS x PE that we then discount using the estimated cost of capital;
  • Historical EV/EBITDA – we assume mean reversion to the historical EV/EBITDA values.

I’ll put more weight on the DCF and EPS methods and only then the historical one. Given the ever-changing landscape of the world and the whole business the company operates, it seems unreasonable to assume a higher probability of mean reversion to the historical averages of the company.

Cost of Capital

I’ve used the latest annual financial statement of the company, the 10-Year US bonds as the risk free rate and revenue geographic exposure to come up with its cost of capitalcost of debt and cost of equity. Also, given the fact that Moody’s provided a rating for the company I used it as the debt rating.

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Cost of Capital: 10.05%.

This value will be used later as a discount rate in the valuation methods.

Please feel free to come up with your own values by using the tool I’ve used: Cost of Capital – The Fair Value Journal. It is and will ever be completely free 🙂

Discounted Cash Flows (Weight: 50%)

I’ve used the latest annual financial statement of the company, the analyst estimates for both revenue and margins and the cost of capital calculated previously.

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Some notes on the inputs above:

  • Terminal Revenue Growth – I’m using the risk-free rate (10-Yr bonds of US), because long term the company should not grow more than the rate of the economy. I’m using the risk-free rate as a proxy to it, so the terminal growth becomes it;
  • Terminal Cost of Capital – I’m assuming that the company starts at the previously estimated cost of capital and then will converge gradually to the average cost of capital of its industry;
  • Terminal Tax Rate – The company starts at around ~18% of tax rate and then gradually converges to this terminal rate, equal to the industry average;

All the other inputs were taken from the financial statement or from analyst projections.

The DCF gives us an estimated fair value of 28.77 dollars for Nike.

Something that we can also do now is to play around with Monte Carlo simulations. What this will allow us to do is to simulate multiple DCF valuations with pre-defined ranges for each of the inputs. Each simulation will randomize the inputs between these pre-defined values. For this I also used analysts estimates.

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As you can see from the above Nike seems to be overvalued given that its current price of 40 dollars is well above P90. From these simulations we can extrapolate that there’s 90% probability that the stock is overvalued at the current price.

As always take this single output, from this DCF valuation method, with a grain of salt. Let’s move on to the other valuation methods to get a clearer picture.

Please be free, as before, to fill in your own values. Make the valuation your own and do yourself a DCF valuation using your own assumptions: DCF – The Fair Value Journal

EPS Growth (Weight: 30%)

For this valuation method, I’ve used the current EPS and the analysts estimates of EPS growth. I also assumed a 24 PE for the company, so a little below its historical averages.

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Then again, I used the Monte Carlo simulations to check how the estimated fair value changed as my assumptions were modified.

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Using this method, Nike that is currently priced at 40 dollars seems to be fairly valued being currently valued around the median of the simulations.

As before, feel free to try this yourself: EPS Growth – The Fair Value Journal

EPS Scenario Returns

We can also explore a little further the different scenarios by projecting in time the worst, the base and the best case scenarios.

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6ce83970.1782860956373.dc89d3a9b76ed5ad

As before, feel free to try this yourself: EPS Scenario Returns — The Fair Value Journal

Historical EV/EBITDA (Weight: 20%)

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The current EV/EBITDA (Enterprise Value / Earnings Before Interests, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization) ratio is below its 10 Year average. This means that the company is undervalued by this metric. Assuming a mean reversion to its historical average of 23.73 we can assume a fair value of 52.19 dollars.

For every type of historical and relative valuation you can use the same free tool: Historical / Relative Valuation – The Fair Value Journal

✍️Summary

Now that we did all the heavy work, let’s take the above and come up with the company weighted average fair value.

I basically take each valuation method used and given my confidence on the company apply a 20% or 10% discount (when to buy) and addition (when to sell) or use the Monte Carlo P10, P20, P80 and P90 values:

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Feel free to choose your own values, but for me I would start adding again or initiating a position in Nike around the 32 dollars mark, because I believe Nike will maintain its wide moat and remain a strong brand in sportswear, despite the current headwinds. For me, as a long term shareholder for now its a hold, while waiting a little bit longer for the turnaround to come true.

Please, as always, remember that the fair value estimate has a 100% probability of being wrong and it will never be a precise number, even if it has decimals next to it 😮

Overall it seems Nike is a little overvalued or at most fairly valued at its current market price.

Fair Value: 36.83 dollars.

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