Nike's stock has fallen to its lowest level since 2014. The company risks being dropped from the Dow Jones

Shares of sports apparel and footwear manufacturer Nike fell to a 12-year low during trading on Thursday, August 17. The struggling company may lose its place in Wall Street’s second-most-important index after it was decided to remove it from the S&P 100, Reuters reports. Nike’s position also appears shaky in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, a “blue-chip” index in which Nike has been a component for 13 years, the agency notes.

Nike shares jumped 2.9% at the start of the trading session on September 17 following the announcement that Alexandre Arnault, deputy CEO of LVMH Moët Hennessy, would join the board of directors. The stock then lost momentum and fell to $35.72, its lowest level since 2014. However, it closed the day up 1.6%.

Analysts have warned that Nike could be delisted from the Dow Jones index due to an 80% decline in the company's market value over the past five years, caused by falling sales resulting from a lack of innovation and competition from new entrants, according to Reuters.

Since being added to the Dow Jones Industrial Average in 2013, Nike’s stock has risen by only 5%, while the broad-market S&P 500 index has more than quadrupled during that time, the agency notes.

With its stock price at $36, Nike is currently the smallest component in the price-weighted Dow. Nike accounts for just 0.4% of the index: this situation has traditionally preceded its removal from other indices, Reuters notes. In addition, it is the index’s worst-performing stock this year, he added.

Unlike the Nasdaq 100 and the S&P 500, whose inclusion rules set limits on market capitalization and free-float, the Dow calculates the weightings of its components based solely on stock price and has no clear criteria for exclusion. However, a Reuters analysis of the 10 most recent changes to the index since 2013 showed that in at least half of the cases, the stock with the lowest weighting at the time of removal was excluded from the index.

Nike and S&P Dow Jones Indices declined to comment to Reuters.

“Just looking at it historically, the company is definitely a candidate for delisting,” said Josh Bischof, partner and chief trader at TimesSquare Capital Management.

— “I would estimate the probability of Nike being delisted as significantly higher over the next year, but the situation is complicated because the Dow does not have an automatic delisting rule under which a company is removed after exceeding a certain threshold,” — said Shay Bolur, chief market strategist at Futurum Equities.

— “With the exception of a couple of key product lines, Nike’s products no longer appeal to consumers as much as they used to,” said Drake McFarland, an analyst at M Science.

Nike's stock has fallen 44% since the beginning of 2026. The most common analyst recommendation is “hold”: the stock has 26 “Hold” ratings, compared with nine “Buy” and three “Overweight” (equivalent to a “buy” recommendation) ratings, and five “Sell” ratings, according to MarketWatch.

The most recent change to the Dow’s composition took place in June: telecommunications giant Verizon Communications was removed from the index and replaced by Alphabet, Google’s parent company. As S&P Dow Jones Indices explained, this decision was due to the low price of Verizon’s stock. Other recent exclusions include chemical company Dow Inc., chipmaker Intel, and pharmacy chain Walgreens, all of which left the index in 2024.

According to the S&P Dow Jones Indices methodology, changes to the Dow are made as needed. Rather than annual or semiannual reviews, the composition may be adjusted at any time in response to corporate events and market developments, Reuters notes. Decisions regarding changes to the index are made by the Averages Committee, which consists of three representatives from S&P Dow Jones Indices and two employees of The Wall Street Journal, the agency reports.

The committee monitors a number of factors, including whether the price of the most expensive stock in the index exceeds that of the least expensive by more than 10 times, Reuters explains. Goldman Sachs shares, which have the largest weighting in the index, closed on Wednesday, September 16, at around $938—26 times more expensive than Nike shares.

Although the committee monitors these indicators, there are no specific deadlines for taking action. The committee meets “regularly,” and all discussions related to the index are confidential, according to Reuters.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor