The sporting goods sector confirmed its resilience in the third quarter of 2020 with an average increase of 10.8 percent in the public companies’ share price between June 30 and Sept. 30. Comparatively, two relatively bullish American indexes, the Dow Jones 30 and the S&P 500, posted gains of only 6.4 percent and 7.6 percent, respectively, during the period. The European FTSE and the Chinese Hang Seng plunged by 4.9 percent and 4.7 percent.
As shown in the chart that we have compiled, Nike, Adidas, Anta, Asics, VF Corp. and many other significant sports market players outperformed in the past quarter. Nike went up by 28.9 percent after reporting on an excellent quarter. With new strategies recently outlined by its management, Li Ning posted the biggest growth.
After divesting the Japanese rights to the Kappa brand, China Dongxiang saw its share price go up by more than 30 percent along with four other companies – Dick’s Sporting Goods, Giant Manufacturing, Hanesbrands and JD Sports Fashion. For some reasons, Acushnet, Mizuno, Shimano, Skechers and Xtep recorded declines.
As shown in a separate chart being published in our Outdoor Industry Compass, all the companies involved in the outdoor sector except for Johnson Outdoors registered gains in the stock market during the third quarter, as the sector recovered strongly after the retail lockdowns in the first half of this year. On average, their stock price went up by 11.1 percent.
The sporting goods sector had outperformed the rest of the economy even more strongly in the second quarter of this year, with a joint increase of 30.8 percent, but the coronavirus pandemic hit it hard after its “official” start with the Chinese Lunar Year on Jan. 24. In the end, the average share price of the sector has fallen by 5.0 percent since then, but still doing better generally than the rest of the stock market.
Interestingly, sporting goods firms have been generally doing better on the stock exchange during the past 12 months than some big e-tailers and some major luxury fashion companies. As shown in a study conducted by Textilwirtschaft, Nike was the star with an increase of 10.5 percent in its share price year-on-year, followed by Levi’s, Amazon and Asos.
Burberry did a little better than Puma, which went up by 5.6 percent, and Prada did a little better than Adidas, which went up 4.6 percent. However, with a rise of 2.8 percent, VF performed a little better than LVMH. Further down in the ranking; Zalando grew by only 2.6 percent and Kering was flat, while Inditex and H&M suffered slight declines.
Photo: Chris Liverani, Unsplash
