Could a Possible Hoka Slowdown be Behind Deckers’ 20% Stock Drop? Some Analysts Are Stumped
Despite continuing to beat earnings estimates in the third quarter of fiscal 2025, Deckers Brands has hit a bump in the road on Wall Street.
Shares of the Hoka and Ugg parent company ended the trading day on Friday down over 20 percent.
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The dip in stock has some analysts stumped.
“Deckers posted extremely strong fiscal Q3 2025 results and substantially raised guidance, but shares are trading lower meaningfully in the 1/30 aftermarket,” Tom Nikic, analyst at Needham & Company, wrote in a note on Friday. “Quite frankly, this a head-scratcher to us.”
For Williams Trading analyst Sam Poser, he is bullish on the future of the company. “Deckers manages its brands, and investors’ expectations better than almost every company within our coverage,” Poser wrote in a note on Thursday. “Deckers’ consistent results have been and will continue to be the standard-bearer for the success of the less is more business strategy, which keeps supply below demand, and drives outsized margin growth and top tier revenue growth over the long term.”
In fact, Poser noted that Decker’s focus on, and commitment to, the consumer, evolving brand equity, product and consumer-facing innovation, and global growth lead Williams Trading to increase its estimates and raise its price target for the shoe company.
“We are more confident that pent-up demand for both Ugg and Hoka, driven by compelling product, marketing innovation, and brand segmentation, international growth opportunities, and clean inventory levels will lead to ongoing success and guidance beats,” Poser added.
But Stifel managing director Jim Duffy was less optimistic, hinting at a possible deceleration at Hoka in his recent note. “[Fourth quarter guidance] is disappointing,” Duffy wrote. “Deckers has a well-established history of guiding conservatively one quarter ahead, but the directional slowing is notable in the context of valuation.”
Duffy added that Hoka’s combined third quarter and fourth quarter implied growth of 18 percent, which compares to the first half of this year’s growth of 32 percent, and “is light of prevailing consensus” of Hoka expectations for 20 percent increase in fiscal 2026. The analyst added that Deckers will likely again over-deliver on its fourth quarter earnings though he sees risk on Hoka’s consensus expectations, as he believes it will “prove too ambitious” for fiscal 2026.
“At the current valuation, slowing Hoka growth will be difficult for the stock to overcome,” Duffy said. “[But] we remain impressed with business execution and strategies to manage the brands for the long-term but remain comfortable with below consensus fiscal year 2026 estimates and our Hold rating on Deckers shares.”
Nikic had mixed feelings about Hoka’s future. The analyst wrote in his note that Hoka’s guidance “implies a slowdown to low double digit revenue growth in Q4, due to a tough compare of a 34 percent increase” in the prior year’s fourth quarter.
“That said, [Deckers] spoke positively about the recently released Bondi 9 (launched two weeks ago) and are excited about several other product launches in the coming months (including the newest iteration of Hoka’s best-selling style, the Clifton, in early first quarter 2026),” Nikic said. “They also noted expectations for more door count expansion for Hoka in fiscal year 2026, which should support sustained strong growth.”
This comes as Deckers Brands reported net sales in the third quarter of fiscal 2025 increased 17.1 percent to $1.827 billion compared to $1.560 billion the same time last year. Net income in the period was $456.7 million, up from $389.9 million in the same year-ago quarter.
By brand, Hoka saw the largest increase in sales in the third quarter, reporting a 23.7 percent rise to $530.9 million, up from $429.3 million in Q3 2024.
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