Nike leaves the S&P 100 on September 21, and four technology companies take its place. Dell Technologies, Palo Alto Networks, Arista Networks and SanDisk all move up from the wider S&P 500.

S&P Dow Jones Indices confirmed the changes in its quarterly rebalance. Nike keeps its S&P 500 membership, but it drops out of the 100 largest US companies.

Four Tech Names Take the Open Seats

Nike is not the only exit. Honeywell Aerospace, Simon Property Group and Colgate-Palmolive also leave on the same date. Every replacement, however, comes from the information technology sector.

The index now leans more heavily toward chips, cloud hardware, and cybersecurity.

Arista sells the switches that connect AI data centers. SanDisk, spun out of Western Digital last year, makes flash memory.

Palo Alto Networks chief executive Nikesh Arora recently argued that the AI spending wave demands a new AI security stack. Dell rounds out the group. All four ride the capital spending boom behind this year’s record highs.

The S&P 100 holds the largest and most established members of the S&P 500. Funds that track it must now buy the newcomers and sell the leavers. SanDisk shares jumped on the news.

Bloom Energy, Illumina and Everpure join the S&P 500 the same morning.

Why Nike Lost Its S&P 100 Spot

The math is brutal. Nike closed at $38.40 on Friday, its weakest level in 12 years. The stock has lost about half its value in a year and roughly 76% over five years.

Market value tells the same story. Nike is worth close to $57 billion today, down from about $264 billion at the end of 2021. The S&P 100 gained 83% over those same 5 years.

Crypto traders have watched the slide closely, because Nike has fallen further than Bitcoin since 2021. Strategy even launched $250 Bitcoin Jordans last week, although buyers cannot pay in crypto.

Nike still sells far more sneakers than SanDisk sells memory chips. Investors, however, pay for growth. Today they pay for tech.

Source: BeInCrypto