Tim Cook Bought Nike Twice — $58.97 in Dec, $42.43 in April

Most readers of Tim Cook's Form 4 filings care about one company: Apple. The Apple CEO's transaction history is one of the most-watched insider data feeds in US equities. But Cook is also a director on the board of Nike, which means his Form 4 filings include any open-market transactions in Nike stock made in his outside-director capacity. The April 10, 2026 filing reports a fresh purchase: 25,000 shares of NKE at $42.43, for $1.1 million. That follows a December 22, 2025 purchase of 50,000 shares at $58.97, for $2.9 million. Two open-market buys, both code P (purchase), both in Cook's name. He is averaging down on Nike inside his board fiduciary capacity, and most retail-investor news flow does not surface the signal because the filings get categorized as "Apple insider" rather than as "Nike insider."

Insider purchase code P is the rarest and most informative Form 4 signal. Unlike S codes (sales, which can be plan-driven or tax-cover), code P denotes a discretionary open-market purchase with the insider's own capital. There is no plan obligation, no compensation mechanic, no tax structure that forces the trade — the insider chose to buy at the prevailing price. When the insider is a CEO of one of the largest companies in the world filing through his Nike directorship, the signal is especially clean.

The two purchases in context

Nike's stock chart through 2025-2026 shows two distinct drawdowns. The first reached $58 in late 2025 following weak fiscal Q2 results and continued China demand concerns. The second leg down took NKE to the low $40s in April 2026 amid tariff escalation and a guidance reset on the China business. Cook bought at both bottoms — December 2025 near $59 and April 2026 near $42. The pattern is averaging down: a clear directional view that Nike's franchise value will recover from the China-headwinds cycle.

Cook's combined investment across the two transactions is $4 million across 75,000 shares. That is a substantial figure for an outside-board purchase. By comparison, most Nike independent directors trade in lot sizes of 1,000-5,000 shares at most insider-purchase windows. Cook's 25,000- and 50,000-share lots are exceptionally large for a director-level transaction.

What it signals about Nike

Insider-purchase decisions by directors who also run major companies are interesting because their information set differs from public market participants. Cook sees Nike's quarterly board materials: revenue mix, China store-traffic data, marketing spend allocation, inventory aging, and the post-Heidi Beckman strategic plan. None of that is public.

Three reads on Cook's averaging-down behavior:

1. Cook believes Nike's China rebuild is on track. The thesis would be that Nike's go-direct-to-consumer pivot in China plus the new product cycle (Vomero, Pegasus refreshes, lifestyle category) bottoms operating-income in early 2026 and recovers through 2027.
2. Cook sees the bond market and trade policy stabilizing. US-China tariff escalation hits Nike's cost structure (Vietnam and China sourcing) directly. Cook's purchases at $58.97 and $42.43 imply confidence that the tariff escalation has either been priced or will reverse.
3. Cook sees a structurally cheap entry point. Nike's forward P/E at the April 2026 print was roughly 18x trough earnings — well below the 25-30x range the franchise commanded through 2017-2022. A board member with deep operational knowledge buying at trough earnings multiples is a value-discipline signal.

None of these are mutually exclusive. The combined message is: Tim Cook thinks Nike at $42-58 is buyable from the inside, with knowledge of the actual operational trajectory.

The Apple Form 4 context

The April 10 Form 4 also captured Cook's standard Apple cashless-exercise activity from April 1-2. Those transactions follow the well-known Cook compensation cadence: option exercises (M codes) on April 1 against the original grant strike, followed by Class A common-stock sales on April 2 to cover the strike cost and tax withholding. Total Class A shares sold on April 2 across 5 transactions: approximately 59,862 shares at undisclosed weighted-average prices. Cook retains 3,411,994 shares via derivative securities (Table II), which is a meaningful continued Apple economic exposure despite the periodic April monetization.

The Apple cashless-exercise pattern is mechanical, not informational. The Nike purchases are discretionary, not mechanical. That distinction is what makes the April 10 filing as a whole interesting: two opposite signals in the same document. The mechanical Apple sale is not bearish on AAPL; the discretionary Nike buy IS bullish on NKE.

Nike's institutional book

Nike has substantial institutional ownership across the standard passive layer:

• BlackRock at $4.85 billion, 0.08% portfolio — near-index weight.
• Vanguard Capital Management at $4.09 billion, 0.10% portfolio.
• State Street at $3.80 billion, 0.13% portfolio.

The active layer:

• Capital World Investors: $2.67 billion, 0.36% portfolio — meaningful overweight versus Nike's S&P 500 index weight of approximately 0.30%.
• Wellington Management Group: $2.03 billion, 0.35% portfolio — similar overweight.
• Citadel Advisors: $1.57 billion, 0.24% — likely options-driven hedged.

Capital World and Wellington both running slight overweights on NKE through the 2025-2026 drawdown is consistent with the Cook-purchase signal — active managers with deep consumer-discretionary research teams have been positioned for the same recovery thesis Cook is expressing through his personal account.

Forward catalysts

1. Nike's fiscal Q4 2026 earnings (late June 2026). This is the next major operational read. China revenue trajectory, gross margin recovery, and inventory aging will be the three central numbers. If China revenue accelerates or even stabilizes, Cook's averaging-down thesis pays.
2. Tariff policy. Any de-escalation in US-China trade tension is a direct margin lever. Watch the next trade-meeting cycle.
3. Cook's next Form 4. Whether he adds further to the Nike position at higher prices is the cleanest signal of conviction strength. Tim Cook's filing history is worth tracking quarterly.
4. Q2 2026 13F filings (due August 14, 2026). Watch whether Capital World, Wellington, and other active managers add to or trim NKE in line with Cook's purchases. Track via the institutional signals feed.

Apple's CEO bought Nike twice across four months as the stock fell from $60 to $42. He averaged down at trough valuations with discretionary capital, inside the information set of a sitting Nike director. The signal is rare, clean, and directional. For a primer on Form 4 code P purchases and outside-board director filings, see our explainer hub.

Source: SEC Form 4 filings dated 2025-12-22 and 2026-04-10, accession listings at EDGAR — Cook Timothy D filer index.