The Rundown - Nike Warns of Sales Plunge, DoorDash Partners with Klarna

Episode Date: March 21, 2025

Stock market update for March 21, 2025.

Public.com presents the rundown. Your daily market update in five minutes. My name is Zadadmani, and today is Friday, March 21st. In today's episode, we tell you why Nike's turnaround plan is not going great and why things might get worse. We also tell you why DoorDash will start offering a buy-now, pay later option on their app soon. Then stick around to the end of the show to find out how much money Apple TV Plus is losing every year and why I'm okay with it.

We got a great show for you today. Let's go. Well, yesterday was an up and down kind of day, and no, I'm not talking about college basketball. The stock market showed some life to start the day. It was in the green, but ultimately could not sustain that rally and end of the day in the red,

with the S&P 500 dropping 0.2% and the NASDAQ losing 0.3%. Now, it's never great to have a red day, but I think I've gotten so used to seeing the markets move up or down, like 1% every day, that a 0.3% move doesn't really do it for me anymore. It's almost like a flat day at this point. Now, to take an optimistic perspective, this might be a sign that markets are starting to settle in a bit, and they're not selling heavily as they were before. We haven't had any shocking news or random tariff tweets from Trump this week, so that's been nice. In fact, the S&P

is currently up for the week, and depending on how today goes, it might snap a four-week losing streak. So it would be really nice to see some green today. Now, we are about to enter into a bit of a slow period on the economic calendar. There's no major economic news coming out over the next week or so, but in a couple weeks, we're going to kick off earnings season again. Q1 is coming to an end, and we're going to start getting numbers from corporate America to see how that quarter went. We're going to peek at the books to see if some of the uncertainty in the stock market and all the tariff drama is actually impacting the sales and profits of these businesses. And then don't forget, But on April 2nd, President Trump said that retaliatory tariffs would start going into effect.

So enjoy this bit of calm in the markets while we have it, because it's just a matter of time before we get wild again. Let's run through some headlines. And we got to start with Nike. It's not looking so good for the swoosh right now. They just reported earnings for the last quarter, and they have a lot of work to do to turn things around. Nike's revenues last quarter was $11.3 billion, which did beat Wall Street. Street estimates, but it's down 9% from the same quarter from a year ago. On top of that, Nike expects sales to drop by double digits in the current quarter. So that's not great.

Nike also saw their gross profits drop by 4 to 5%. So on the surface, all of that looks pretty bad. But when you start digging in deeper, it picture starts to get worse. Nike's having issues across all segments and brands right now. Nike's direct channels, which includes e-commerce and their own stores dropped by 12%. Their wholesale revenues was down 7%. Revenues in China were down 17%. And then some of the sub-brands that Nike owns are also starting to lose steam.

Converse saw their sales drop by 18%. Jordan Brand lost 12% in revenue. So Nike is seeing a sales decline and they're seeing their profit margins take a hit because they're having to discount their inventory to sell their stuff. Now, that wasn't bad enough to make matters worse because Trump implemented a 20% tariff on Chinese imports, Nike might see their profits take even more of a head

since 24% of Nike suppliers and manufacturers are in China. So Nike is facing a ton of challenges right now. Their new CEO, Elliot Hill, who started like five months ago, has a lot to figure out. I mean, I know the dude just started, but the turnaround plan is not going well. And I don't think like a cool commercial or fancy marketing is going to be enough to turn things around. And that's why investors are starting to get nervous. Nike stock is down 7% this morning in reaction to these earnings. Anecdotally speaking, I mean, I haven't bought Nike gear in a while.

Now I'm buying Skechers and New Balance and, yeah, it's not helping the dad stereotype. But man, those shoes are great, especially those Skechers slip-ons, big fan. Let's shift gears and talk about a story that sparked a ton of memes on the internet yesterday. DoorDash is partnering with Kalarna to offer Buy Now Pay Later on their platform. DoorDash says that with Kalarna's integration, customers will have the option to pay in four equal interest-free installments. That's right. You'll soon have the option to take out a loan for your next Chipotle bowl ordered through DoorDash. I mean, look, buy now, pay later is everywhere at this point. Every major retailer has this option.

In fact, we mentioned earlier this week that Kalarna signed a deal with Walmart. But something about offering it with food delivery, I don't know. It just feels weird. Doesn't feel right. I mean, I can see why DoorDash wants to do it, because offering a Buy Now Pay Later option does tend to increase sales, which means more fees for DoorDash. And all jokes aside, I think DoorDash is hoping this will get people to buy big ticket items through DoorDash like electronics or groceries. So it makes business sense for DoorDash to offer this, and it's another big win for Kalarna, especially as they get ready for an IPO. But as you can imagine, the internet was just focused on making jokes, and they had a field day with this one.

There were a lot of big short memes. I think the best comment I saw was someone saying they can't wait to save up for a down payment on their taco. Let's talk about some stocks making moves today. Dana Her shares are rising after Goldman Sachs upgraded the medical device company to a buy rating with a price target of $260. Goldman Sachs believes the stock is at an attractive entry point. Dana Her's shares have fallen more than 23% in the past six months. So Goldman thinks it's a good time to buy the dip. As a result, Dana Hare shares, ticker symbol DHR, is up around 1% today on this upgrade.

The stock currently trades around $210. So Goldman thinks there's some room to run here. Dana-Hur is not really a household name, but not a lot of stocks in the green today. Now, on the flip side, shares of FedEx are diving after the company lowered its 2025 outlook. The company's CFO said that the revised earnings outlook reflects a continued weakness and uncertainty in the U.S. industrial economy. It does feel like FedEx is always sounding the alarms in their earnings call, but this time they are legitimately worried about tariffs.

As a result, shares of FedEx are down more than 10% this morning. Micron shares are also down this morning despite the company beating earning estimates for the quarter. Micron said its data center revenue tripled, and total sales grew by 38% last quarter. But I guess AI investors' expectations are just too high right now, So shares of Micron are down around 8% at the time of this recording. Absolutely brutal. AI stocks are just not having a good year.

Let's wrap the show with a fun fact. Apple is losing over a billion dollars a year on their streaming service, according to the information. You know, Apple TV Plus makes a lot of great shows, and they have around 40 million subscribers. But that pales in comparison to some of the bigger streamers like Netflix, which has 300 million subscribers. Disney Plus has over 125 million subscribers, so Apple TV Plus is way behind. And again, their shows are great, but they're very expensive, which explains why Apple TV Plus is losing so much money. The company has spent over $5 billion a year on Apple TV Plus since it first came out six years ago.

Honestly, I mean, even as an Apple shareholder, I think I'm okay with this. Apple can afford to lose a billion dollars a year if it means we get some great content. Also, with the popularity of severance, hopefully that will help soften the blow a bit. By the way, anyone that saw the Severance finale last night, please no spoilers in the comments. I actually haven't watched any of Severance yet. I recently signed up for Apple TV Plus again, and now that the finale is out,

I'll probably binge through the whole thing in like a couple weekends. Also, let me know in the comments some of your other favorite Apple TV Plus shows. Well, all right, guys, that's the rundown for today. That's the rundown for this week. Hope you guys enjoyed today's episode. Now, if you guys are looking for some bonus rundown content, we are going to have another deep dive episode come out this weekend,

So keep an eye on your podcast feed for that. Actually, we're going to be posting a video of it on Spotify or YouTube. So try to catch the video version because we're going to have graphics and charts and stuff. And again, if you guys enjoy our show and have like eight extra seconds, consider giving us a five-star rating on Apple or Spotify. Leave us a comment on Spotify, vote in the Spotify poll. Follow our Instagram account for clips of this episode. All that engagement really does help us out and it helps other people find the show.

Thank you guys so much for listening. Shout out to Mike and Connor for all the help behind the scenes and we'll see you guys back here this weekend. This is the rundown, your real-time resource for news events and trends in the markets. All views presented in the show reflect the opinions of the guests. You should not take any mention of a publicly traded security

as recommendation to buy, sell or hold that security. Rundown guests are not financial advisors and are not affiliated with public holdings or its subsidiaries. You should make your own financial and investment decisions or consult, respected professionals. Learn more at public.com disclosures. In partnership with Zaydae Moni, brokerage services for U.S. listed,

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