Oppenheimer upgrades Nike to Outperform, lifts price target

Oppenheimer has upgraded Nike (NKE) from Perform to Outperform and raised its price target from $110 to $120.

Yahoo Finance's Brad Smith and Madison Mills report more on the bullish call and the retailer's outlook after struggling with weak consumer sales.

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Morning Brief.

This post was written by Melanie Riehl

Video transcript

Nike getting a bullish call from Oppenheimer this morning.

The firm upgrading the stock from perform to outperform.

Also lifting the price target from $110 up to 120.

Reinstating this retailer as a top mega cap pick.

The analyst behind the call saying that near term financial expectations for Nike are largely the risk.

Also, I thought the kind of quote to call out from this note Nike is on the men.

That is a direct quote from analyst Brian N writing this note, saying that, yes, Nike has had a slew of tough quarters, particularly given the slowdown that we've seen in consumer spending coming out of China.

That's been a key kind of data point to watch when it comes to Nike's earnings.

But in this note, they're saying that it's time to turn more constructive based on general intermediate to longer term views.

This price target here implying a 26% increase in the stock moving forward.

This is the second major call that we've heard on Nike over the course of this week.

We had Morgan Stanley earlier this week.

They were out adjusting their outlook.

They were still ultimately optimistic, but they did adjust their price target down by about $2.

Morgan Stanley did, and I think for Nike what they're going to try and communicate over the course of their results when they report for this quarter and look forward, ultimately to the current quarter that we're in right now.

Is the Olympics quite frankly, this once every four years phenomenon where Nike is gonna have major athletes, they're gonna be a lot of major US brands that have their athletes performing.

I've already seen a lot of the promotional elements going on, uh, around, uh, Cindy McLaughlin, who have courses with new balance.

Of course, it's gonna be amazing to see.

I mean, golf is the one area where I think the US, with their own kind of annexation to apparel, has missed the mark.

They've got, uh, JL.

Uh, that's doing and that's a Sweden based company.

I believe doing that.

So interesting move there.

But anyway, all these things considered it's because Ralph Lauren didn't want that contract.

Um, because of a Ryder Cup debacle.

Anyway, all these things considered for Nike, they're going to really be telling and selling the street all of the advancements that they're putting forward on an innovation stance within the Olympics.

And they're gonna see that that investors and, uh customers will see that play out and that it will be eventually a creative, more long term to the customer.

Lifetime value beyond just what they've been able to do and leaning into some of the more successful brands I'm looking at, specifically Jordan brand and how they've made that even more of a basketball more than a retro play.