Nike Is Leaving the S&P 100 After Nearly 18 Years as Its Stock Sinks 78% From Peak

Nike is being removed from the S&P 100. S&P Dow Jones Indices announced on September 4, 2026 that NIKE, Inc. will leave the blue-chip index before trading opens on September 21, when Palo Alto Networks takes its place. The change ends a run that began in December 2008 — just under 18 years.

The timing makes the decision especially striking. Nike shares closed September 4 at $38.40, near levels last seen more than a decade ago. Measured from Nike's November 2021 peak of $177.51, the stock is down about 78.4%. That is close to the “79%” figure spreading online, but it is not the same as saying Nike has fallen exactly 79% over a clean five-year period: compared with its early-September 2021 close, the decline is closer to 76.5%.

The index removal is not a delisting, bankruptcy signal or removal from the S&P 500. Nike remains an S&P 500 constituent. But it is a blunt symbol of how far one of America's most recognizable consumer brands has fallen from its 2021 market peak — and how much work remains in CEO Elliott Hill's turnaround.

Key takeaways

• Nike will leave the S&P 100 before the market opens on September 21, 2026. Palo Alto Networks will replace it.
• Nike joined the S&P 100 in December 2008, so the change ends a tenure of roughly 17 years and nine months.
• Nike's September 4 close of $38.40 is about 78.4% below its November 2021 peak of $177.51. A comparable early-September 2021-to-September 2026 calculation is closer to a 76.5% decline.
• The company is still in the S&P 500. The S&P 100 removal changes its place in a narrower mega-cap benchmark, not its listing status.
• The stock collapse reflects more than index mechanics: revenue remains below fiscal 2024 levels, Nike Direct has weakened, China remains difficult, and management is still rebuilding product momentum and wholesale relationships.

What S&P Global actually announced

The official announcement came from S&P Dow Jones Indices as part of its September quarterly rebalance. The changes are effective before the open of trading on Monday, September 21, 2026.

Four companies are being added to the S&P 100: Dell Technologies, Palo Alto Networks, Arista Networks and Sandisk. Four are being removed: Honeywell Aerospace, Nike, Simon Property Group and Colgate-Palmolive. In Nike's case, Palo Alto Networks is the replacement.

S&P said the rebalance is intended to make its indexes more representative of their respective market-capitalization ranges. That matters because the S&P 100 is not simply a list of famous American brands. It is a concentrated benchmark of large, established U.S. companies selected from the S&P 500 universe.

The distinction is important: Nike is leaving the S&P 100, not the S&P 500. The same S&P announcement separately lists the companies entering and leaving the S&P 500, and Nike is not among those deletions.

Nike's S&P 100 run lasted nearly 18 years

Nike's place in the index dates to the financial-crisis era. A December 2008 Standard & Poor's announcement said Nike would replace CIGNA in the S&P 100 after the close of trading on December 19, 2008. At the time, Standard & Poor's said the changes were intended to strengthen the index's representation of the U.S. mega-cap equity market.

That makes the 2026 removal more than a routine ticker swap. Nike entered the index when its market value had grown large enough to represent America's mega-cap corporate class. It is now leaving after a long period in which the company's brand remained globally dominant, but its stock-market value and operating momentum weakened sharply from their highs.

From December 19, 2008 to September 21, 2026 is about 17 years and nine months. Calling it “nearly 18 years” is more precise than rounding the tenure up to a full 18 years.

How far Nike's stock has actually fallen

The viral version of this story says Nike has “crashed 79% in five years.” The underlying point is real — the drawdown has been enormous — but the measurement needs a little precision.

Reference point	Nike price	September 4, 2026 close	Approx. decline
November 2021 peak	$177.51	$38.40	78.4%
September 3, 2021 close	$163.29	$38.40	76.5%

So the “79%” number is a reasonable shorthand from the 2021 peak, after rounding. It is not the exact return from an equivalent September date five years earlier. That difference does not rescue the chart; it simply makes the claim accurate.

The larger story is that Nike has lost most of the equity value implied by its pandemic-era peak. The share price at the September 4 close was also roughly half its level from a year earlier, according to recent market reporting.

Index removals can create some mechanical selling as funds and accounts tracking the benchmark rebalance. But that is not what caused a multi-year decline of this magnitude. The S&P 100 decision is better understood as a consequence of Nike's reduced mega-cap standing than as the cause of its long-term stock weakness.

Why Nike has been under pressure

Nike's problems are a mixture of product, channel, geography and execution issues rather than one isolated bad quarter.

Revenue is still well below fiscal 2024

Nike reported $51.36 billion of revenue in fiscal 2024. Revenue fell to about $46.31 billion in fiscal 2025, a decline of nearly 10%. Fiscal 2026 revenue came in at $46.40 billion — essentially flat on a reported basis versus 2025 and down 2% on a currency-neutral basis.

That means fiscal 2026 stabilized the top line compared with the prior year, but did not restore the sales base Nike had two years earlier. Fiscal 2026 revenue remained about 9.7% below fiscal 2024.

Nike Direct is still shrinking while wholesale recovers

The channel mix tells an important part of the turnaround story. For fiscal 2026, Nike Brand wholesale revenue rose 6% on a reported basis to $27.45 billion. Nike Direct fell 6% to $17.72 billion.

That split reflects a strategic reversal from the company's earlier push to emphasize direct-to-consumer distribution. Under the current turnaround, Nike has been rebuilding relationships with wholesale partners while repositioning Nike Digital as a more premium, full-price destination.

The fourth quarter showed the same divergence: wholesale revenue rose 4% to $6.6 billion, while Nike Direct fell 7% to $4.1 billion. Digital sales were weaker still.

China remains one of the biggest pressure points

Greater China has been particularly difficult. Reuters reported that Nike's fourth-quarter Greater China sales fell 17% on a currency-neutral basis. The company has faced weaker demand, assortment problems and tougher competition from domestic brands including Anta and Li Ning.

China is too large to treat as a side issue. A prolonged recovery there can materially slow Nike's global turnaround even if North American wholesale trends improve.

Nike is still clearing the consequences of its previous strategy

Nike's fiscal 2026 filing describes a company still working through older inventory, markdowns and channel repositioning. Management has been liquidating certain products, increasing discounting where necessary, improving physical retail, investing in demand creation and trying to rebuild product innovation around sport.

Those moves can improve the business over time, but they create a messy transition. A turnaround can show genuine progress in one channel while another continues to contract.

What the S&P 100 removal means — and what it does not

The S&P 100 is widely followed, and benchmark-tracking funds will need to reflect the new composition around the rebalance. That can affect trading around the effective date. But the symbolic impact is larger than the direct operating impact.

Nike does not lose stores, customers, intellectual property or exchange listing because of this change. It does not stop being part of the broader S&P 500. The company also does not suddenly become financially distressed because an index committee changed the composition of a narrower benchmark.

What Nike loses is a place in a highly visible mega-cap club it had occupied since 2008. For a company whose market identity was built around global dominance, growth and premium brand power, that is meaningful as a signal of relative scale.

Indexes are comparative. Nike is not being measured against its own past alone; it is being measured against other U.S. companies whose market values have expanded. The September changes are revealing in that all four S&P 100 additions — Dell, Palo Alto Networks, Arista Networks and Sandisk — are information-technology companies.

The bigger market story: tech keeps taking more mega-cap space

Nike's exit is therefore also part of a broader shift in where the U.S. stock market's largest pools of value sit.

A consumer icon is leaving while cybersecurity, networking, enterprise computing and data-storage companies move in. That does not mean consumer brands are disappearing from large-cap indexes. It does show how strongly technology-related businesses have captured market capitalization during the period in which Nike's valuation compressed.

The comparison is especially stark because Nike's own 2021 peak came during an era when investors were willing to pay much more for the company's expected growth. Since then, slower sales, strategic resets and competitive pressure have collided with a market that has rewarded a different set of growth engines.

In other words, Nike did not have to become a small company to lose S&P 100 status. It only had to become less representative of the mega-cap tier while other companies grew past it.

What investors should watch next

The September 21 rebalance is a fixed date, but it is not the most important date for judging whether Nike's underlying business is recovering.

The more useful evidence will come from Nike's operating results. The company has said the turnaround remains uneven, and Reuters reported in June that management expected further revenue pressure in the first half of fiscal 2027.

Four areas matter most:

• Nike Direct and digital: stabilization here would show that the brand can repair its owned channels while continuing to rebuild wholesale.
• Greater China: the size and duration of the decline remain major variables for global growth.
• New product momentum: Nike needs performance innovation to translate into sustained consumer demand, not just isolated launches.
• Margin quality: investors should distinguish durable operating improvement from one-time benefits. Nike's fiscal 2026 fourth-quarter gross margin, for example, received a large boost from expected tariff recoveries.

Nike's full-year numbers already show why a single headline can mislead. Fiscal 2026 wholesale revenue improved, but Direct revenue declined. Full-year gross margin improved modestly, while quarterly margin was distorted by a large tariff-related benefit. Revenue stabilized versus fiscal 2025, but remained materially below fiscal 2024.

That is what an unfinished turnaround looks like: enough improvement to challenge the collapse narrative, but not enough to claim the old Nike growth machine is back.

The bottom line

Nike's removal from the S&P 100 is real, and it becomes effective September 21, 2026. The company is being replaced by Palo Alto Networks after nearly 18 years in the index.

The stock decline is also real. Nike's $38.40 September 4 close is about 78.4% below its November 2021 peak. The more precise five-year comparison from early September 2021 is about 76.5%, which is why “down roughly 78% from its 2021 peak” is the cleaner formulation than “down exactly 79% in five years.”

Most importantly, Nike is not being removed from the S&P 500. The S&P 100 exit is a narrower index change — but one that captures the scale of the company's fall from its market peak. Nike remains one of the world's best-known brands. The question now is whether its business can recover fast enough for its market value to regain the stature the brand name still carries.

Sources

• S&P Global — September 2026 index rebalance announcement
• Standard & Poor's 2008 index-change announcement, republished by Lowe's
• NIKE, Inc. fiscal 2026 Form 10-K
• NIKE, Inc. fiscal 2026 fourth-quarter and full-year results
• Reuters — Nike turnaround, China weakness and fiscal 2027 outlook
• Nasdaq — NKE historical price data

This article is for informational purposes and does not constitute investment advice.