lol far for it
It is true some flock to ROLEX as a safe "heaven" but not too sure of the quantum. You guys are more experience in this scene. Do you see similar jump/trend in prices for ROLEX during the last down turns? Watches as an investment has always been a huge debate.
My thoughts revolve around the notion that even models like DJ are flying off the shelves….suspect these are being bought by the masses, like how retail investors have doubled in the share market and fueling it to a certain degree.
Well the saying goes, when the general public starts talking about it, be careful. Seeing it with stocks and ROLEX now. Seen it with BitCoin and properties.
Last time in 1997 and 2008, luxury watches were not such a hit among the masses and only a few models like vintage Submariner, Kermit and Daytona were sought after by WIS collectors. Now after reading the first few pages of "Watch Investing for Dummies", every Tom, Dick and Harry is taking out money from stock markets or savings with poor returns and banking on ROLEX. At first they go for the hot sports models and when the grey dealers price it up too high, they start going for Air-King and Datejusts as well.
Another possibility is that most ROLEX sport models are priced in the budget category, maybe not for Malaysian average salaries since most steel sports models are in the RM30k-40k bracket at retail price, which translates to about USD10k at most or about SGD10k which isn't a lot at all.
If you're thinking whether the bubble will burst, opinions are that people will start to feel the crunch late this year maybe around November and get really bad around March/April 2021 .....
If there really is a major economic downturn, I doubt you will see a free fall in pricing. Demand will drop for sure, more pieces will show up for sale at ADs and pricing will be corrected to more realistic levels instead of 3x retail price. But a luxury watch is a tangible asset and not like Bitcoin so it's not really a good comparison. And the majority of people buying a luxury watch aren't going to be affected by the economic downturn. Of course there will be "investors" who need to sell their "investments" if they need the cashflow but don't expect there will be a lot of those around and the desperate ones will end up at pawnshops or grey dealers anyway.
As it is, some people have already been burned when buying the Patek 5711 at peak prices and even some AP models but of course nobody is going to make a big fuss about that so as not to appear silly to the watch investor community.