Nike earnings healthily beat expectations, but stock falls

Nike Inc. easily surpassed earnings expectations in its quarterly report Tuesday, but revenue was a bit lighter than expected and shares fell in late trading. The athletic apparel company reported fiscal third-quarter net income of $1.14 billion, or 68 cents a share, on sales of $8.43 billion. Analysts polled by FactSet expected on average for Nike to report earnings of 53 cents a share on sales of $8.47 billion. In its announcement, the company attributed the better-than-expected profit performance to "selling and administrative expense leverage, higher other income (net), a lower effective tax rate and a lower average share count." Nike promised to provide information on futures orders, a closely watched metric that reflects promised retail orders, in its conference call later Tuesday, which should provide more insight into concerns about growing competition. Nike stock, which closed with a 1.1% decline in the worst day for Wall Street so far this year, fell more than 1% in immediate after-hours action.

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