Neil Freiman

Shares plunged 15% yesterday after the sportswear giant dropped a shockingly bad earnings report on Tuesday, showing that the much-hyped turnaround strategy is not just failing to kickstart sales, it might be sending Nike into reverse, and investors are losing patience.

A huge problem area is China, a key market where revenue is projected to fall by up to 20% in the current quarter.

Another glaring weak spot, Converse, which your fashion friends already know is decidedly out.

Sales have cratered 35% from a year earlier to a 15-year low.

It all means CEO Elliot Hill is not having any fun.

The Nike veteran was brought in 18 months ago to make Nike's business trajectory resemble its logo, but it's been more of a slog than anticipated.

Bloomberg reported that at an all hands meeting on Tuesday, Hill told staff, I'm so tired.

And I know you are too of talking about fixing this business.

I want to move to inspiring and driving growth and having fun.

But Toby, there's a long way to go before the smiles come back to Beaverton.

No, I mean, this turnaround is taking way longer than anticipated.

What Elliot Hill, who's brought in as CEO a year and a half ago, is trying to do is move Nike away from those more fashion-forward sneakers to more performance sneakers that were a hit with the running community, right?

That's what Nike...

That's what made Nike Nike in the early years.

And they got a little bit away from that and let on and Hoka and Brooks and these other brands kind of steal the spotlight from those, from the runners, from the top tier athletes that Nike really cut its teeth on.

So he's trying to move away to that.

And that seems to be working, but you know, in, in fits and starts the so-called performance products like shoes for runners sales climbs more than 20%.

And it's sort of Gorp Core offerings.

It has this line called All Conditions Gear brand where you can wear it outside and hiking and stuff like that.

That is going well as well.