Nike Stock Is Down 44% From Its High, and the CEO Has Been Buying Shares. Here's What That Means for Investors.

Shares of Nike (NYSE: NKE) closed Friday at about $44, up nearly 4% and extending a rebound that began when the company reported fiscal fourth-quarter results at the end of June. Even after that bounce, the stock sits about 44% below its 52-week high of $80.17.

Adding to the intrigue is CEO Elliott Hill, who has been putting his own money into the stock near its lows. This begs the question: Is this a good time to follow the CEO into the stock?

Image source: The Motley Fool.

A profit built mostly on a refund

Nike's fiscal fourth quarter of 2026 (the period ended May 31, 2026) looked, at a glance, like a breakout. Revenue came in at $11.0 billion, and net income jumped 407% year over year to $1.1 billion. Diluted earnings per share reached $0.72.

But most of that bottom-line surge traces to a single item. Of the $0.72 in earnings per share, $0.52 came from an expected recovery of import duties Nike had paid under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) -- a nearly $1 billion accounting benefit booked after courts struck down the tariffs. Strip it out, and the company earned about $0.20 per share from running its business.

The same distortion shows up in margins. Nike's gross margin jumped about 9 percentage points, to 49.2%. But almost all of that came from the tariff recovery. Strip it out, and the underlying gross margin was roughly flat -- near 40%, about where it sat a year earlier.

Fourth-quarter revenue fell 1% year over year, and dropped 4% on a currency-neutral basis, which strips out the effect of a weaker dollar. That currency-neutral decline widened as the year went on, from about 1% in the fiscal first quarter to 4% in the fourth. For the full year, sales were essentially flat -- a stabilization after the prior year's steep drop, not yet a recovery. So the reported steadiness owed something to currency, and the profit jump owed almost everything to a one-time refund.

North America is the part that's turning

Underneath the noise, though, one figure suggests the turnaround is more than a story management is telling. Revenue in North America, Nike's largest market, rose 3% year over year to $4.83 billion in the quarter, and climbed 5% for the full fiscal year. After a long slide, Nike's home market is finally growing again, led by a rebound in its wholesale channel as the company rebuilds relationships with the retail partners it had spent years walking away from.

Meanwhile, Greater China, once one of Nike's most dependable growth drivers, fell another 12% in the quarter and 11% for the full year. And Nike Direct, the company's own stores and app, kept sliding, as management deliberately routes more sales back through wholesale partners.

In other words, North America is inflecting, but it hasn't yet pulled the whole company back to growth.

Then there's the insider buying. CEO Elliott Hill has twice put about $1 million of his own money into Nike shares on the open market -- once in late December, near $61 a share, and again in April, near $42, close to the stock's low. Other insiders bought around the same time, including board member Tim Cook -- the CEO of Apple.

Of course, insider purchases guarantee nothing about the stock's prospects. Even inside executives can misjudge their own companies. But a chief executive buying more as the price falls at least signals that the people closest to the business think it's worth more than the market does. So, it's at least worth some consideration.

But what about the stock's valuation?

At about $44, Nike trades at about 21 times earnings. But that multiple is inflated by the one-time tariff benefit baked into the past year's profit. Strip it out, and the price-to-earnings ratio is closer to 28 -- hardly a bargain for a business whose sales are still shrinking outside North America.

So, is the stock a buy here? I'm encouraged, but I'm not buying yet. The recovery in North America and Hill's willingness to buy near the lows are the most convincing signs of a turnaround Nike has offered investors in a while. But the headline profit leans on an accounting item that won't return, and the parts of the business that most need to inflect -- Greater China and the direct-to-consumer channel -- still haven't. At this valuation, I'd want to see companywide sales turn positive on a currency-neutral basis and China stop falling before treating the turnaround as more than early. Until then, I'm content to watch a genuinely improved story get a quarter or two closer to proving itself.

Daniel Sparks and his clients have positions in Apple. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Apple and Nike. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.