The reduction in annual targets by Foot Locker weighed heavily on sporting goods manufacturers on Wednesday. In Germany, the recently well-performing Adidas shares slipped into the red at lunchtime and then widened their discount to 6.4 percent. They lost their position as the best share in the Dax so far this year to Heidelberg Materials.
Adidas shares are still up around 35 percent for the year, driven by hopes of a positive business turnaround after the price plummeted to a five-year low in November 2021, also due to home-grown problems. Adidas developed significantly more strongly than Puma, which only grew by almost four percent in the MDax in 2023. Puma shares settled at a slightly more moderate discount of 3.8 percent on Wednesday.
US athletic shoe retailer Foot Locker cut its 2023 earnings target on Wednesday, missing market expectations. When publishing figures for the second quarter, the company spoke of a still difficult environment and an additional weakening of the trends in July. The market was also severely disappointed when Foot Locker suspended its dividend to provide flexibility for investments.
On the US stock market, the price of Foot Locker collapsed by more than 30 percent before the market. The papers of Adidas and Puma competitor Nike were also affected by the pressure, with a discount of 3.7 percent emerging. Unlike Adidas, Nike investors are used to grief recently, as they can already look back on nine days of losses in a row. This is considered the longest losing streak for shares since the IPO in 1980.
The recent weakness at Nike is mainly justified in the market with the prospects in China. Just like for Adidas, the country in the Far East is considered a particularly important growth market for the Americans. However, investors are concerned about Chinese consumer spending because of the smoldering real estate crisis there and a general economic slump. Chinese retail growth missed expectations in July. (dpa)