Nike Drops Out of the S&P 100 Today After 18 Years as Stock Sits Near 12-Year Low

Nike is officially out of the S&P 100 as of today, Sept. 21, 2026, ending an 18-year run in the index that tracks 100 of America's largest publicly traded companies. The move was announced by S&P Dow Jones Indices on Sept. 4 as part of its quarterly rebalancing.

Nike will be replaced by Dell Technologies, Palo Alto Networks, Arista Networks, and SanDisk, according to Mundo America and Yahoo Finance. Honeywell Aerospace and Colgate-Palmolive are also exiting the index in the same rebalancing. Nike remains listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker NKE and stays in the broader S&P 500.

The numbers behind the exit

Nike shares peaked around $179 in 2021, according to Yahoo Finance. They've since fallen to a 52-week low of $36.85, a drop of nearly 80%. That's a market-cap loss of more than $200 billion, with Nike's valuation sliding from $276.7 billion in 2021 to $58.6 billion as of late August 2026, per Front Office Sports. The stock is down almost 40% year-to-date.

Nike's fiscal year 2026 results, filed with the SEC and cited by Mundo America, show revenue of $46.4 billion, flat on a reported basis but down 2% adjusted for currency. Net income fell 3% to $3.1 billion. Nike Direct, the company's owned stores and digital platform, brought in $17.7 billion, down 6% reported and 8% at constant currency. Nike told the SEC the decline came from reduced traffic. Digital sales alone fell 12%; physical Nike stores fell 4%. Wholesale, by contrast, rose 6% to $27.5 billion. Revenue grew 5% in North America but fell 3% in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

What analysts are actually saying

Morningstar's David Swartz told Front Office Sports the S&P 100 exit is "a bit embarrassing, but otherwise irrelevant." He said it won't move the stock price or change Nike's business, calling it a reflection of problems "well known to everyone anyway." Telsey Advisory Group's Cristina Fernández told the outlet it doesn't change her firm's investment view either way.

BNP Paribas analyst Laurent Vasilescu called the index removal "more symbolic," telling Front Office Sports it "reminds investors how much equity has been destroyed since the highs of 2021," describing it as "a long, painful downward spiral." Bankinter's Elena Fernández-Trapiella, quoted by Mundo America, said the exit will still hurt Nike's image and reduce demand from S&P 100-indexed funds and ETFs that will no longer hold the stock.

The turnaround effort and the inventory problem

CEO Elliot Hill took over two years ago with a mandate to clean up excess inventory, according to Front Office Sports. His predecessor had pulled Nike out of wholesale partners like Dick's Sporting Goods, DSW and Big 5 Sporting Goods to push direct-to-consumer sales. Hill reversed course in 2025, rebuilding those wholesale relationships, but partners ended up ordering more product for 2026 than they could sell. That left Nike and its retail partners with a glut of inventory and heavy discounting. Bernstein analysts noted in a Sept. 8 research report that markdowns remain very high, though improving.

The Kaepernick narrative, and what the filings actually say

Breitbart's coverage ties the entire $200 billion collapse directly to Nike's 2016 embrace of Colin Kaepernick, framing every subsequent stumble as fallout from that decision. A separate commentary, aggregated by Vibe Trader and attributed to OutKick's Craig Carton, expands that argument to include Nike's 2019 pulling of the Betsy Ross shoe, its 2020 "Don't Do It" campaign, and a 2023 sports-bra ad featuring Dylan Mulvaney, along with backlash over new "Specter Edition" NBA jerseys.

This reflects a real strain of criticism from Nike's traditional customer base, and companies alienating longtime buyers with campaigns is a legitimate business risk. Nike's own SEC filings and every analyst quoted by Front Office Sports, Yahoo Finance and Mundo America, however, attribute the stock's collapse to specific, documented business failures: a mistimed shift away from wholesale retailers, a 12% drop in digital sales from reduced traffic, an inventory glut from over-ordering by wholesale partners, and weak sales in China and Europe. None of those sources tie the financial results to any single marketing campaign.

Meanwhile, Nike's roster of star athletes keeps thinning for reasons that have nothing to do with politics. The New York Times reports that Kylian Mbappé, a Nike athlete since childhood, is leaving for On, which reportedly won him over with an equity stake and an innovative new boot design worked on with Thierry Henry, not any brand controversy.

Nike still faces a real test in its next earnings report: whether Hill's wholesale rebuild can clear the inventory backlog without further eroding margins through discounting, a dynamic Bernstein flagged as ongoing as of Sept. 8.