Nike Is the Dow's Worst Stock of 2026 - and That's Exactly the Buy Signal

By Nathan Brooks

Nike has lost 34.8% so far this year, making it the worst-performing stock in the Dow Jones Industrial Average - and, according to Mark Hulbert, that's precisely why contrarian investors should consider buying it.

The logic is simple, and Hulbert has the numbers to back it. One year's worst performer often goes on to beat the market the following year. While Nike has dropped 34.8% through Nov. 4, the Dow itself has delivered a 12.4% total return over the same stretch.

What does the contrarian strategy actually earn?

Hulbert constructed a hypothetical portfolio that, in each calendar year over the past decade, invested in the Dow's worst performer of the prior year. Through Nov. 4, that portfolio produced an 11.1% annualized total return. The State Street SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF Trust (DIA) returned 6.9% annualized over the same period.

That's a gap of more than four percentage points per year - compounding, that difference doubles the contrarian portfolio's edge over a decade.

Last year's test case already validates the approach. UnitedHealth Group (UNH) was the Dow's worst performer in 2025, losing 33.1% for the year, according to LSEG data. So far this year, the stock has gained 26.4% - more than double the gain of the Dow itself.

Why should contrarians wait until January?

Here's the practical catch. Hulbert warns against buying immediately, because two year-end Wall Street practices tend to push already-battered stocks even lower in November and December.

• Year-end window dressing: institutions sell their losers so their year-end reports don't reveal they owned them.
• Tax-loss selling: investors dump stocks held at a loss to offset capital gains they'd otherwise pay tax on by April 15.

The pattern showed up clearly last year. Over the final two months of 2025, UnitedHealth Group's stock lost 0.7%, while the DJIA ETF gained 1.4%.

That late-year weakness creates an entry opportunity. At one point in the final two months of last year, UnitedHealth traded 10.8% below its end-of-October price. Hulbert's worked example: an investor who placed a buy order 10% below the market at the end of last October would now be sitting on close to a 35% gain.

His suggested tactic follows directly - place buy orders well below the market. If one or more get filled, you buy the stocks at even lower prices.

Which Dow losers made the list?

Not every year's loser is a good bet the next year, Hulbert cautions, so contrarians shouldn't automatically buy the prior year's worst. And no one should bet a portfolio on a single stock.

To identify candidates with professional backing, Hulbert screened for Dow stocks that have lost money year-to-date and are also recommended for purchase by at least one of the investment newsletters monitored by his performance-auditing firm, Hulbert Ratings. Five names made the cut (YTD losses through Nov. 4):

Ticker	Stock	YTD Loss	Newsletters Recommending
NKE	Nike	-34.8%	2
CRM	Salesforce	-13.7%	1
IBM	International Business Machines	-12.4%	1
AXP	American Express	-9.1%	1
MCD	McDonald's	-6.5%	1

Nike stands out on both dimensions: the deepest loss in the group and the only name with two newsletter recommendations.

What does this change for practitioners?

For investors who talk the contrarian talk, the playbook is now concrete: identify this year's Dow laggards, wait for year-end window dressing and tax-loss selling to depress them further through December, and set limit orders below the market to catch the seasonal flush. The historical payoff - 11.1% annualized versus 6.9% for the index - suggests the discipline, not the stock-picking genius, is where the edge lies. The question for 2027 is whether Nike follows UnitedHealth's rebound script.