Rolex prices have increased again, as indicated on the website (here) earlier this year. Now that the dust has settled a little, we’re going over the latest prices of the more popular watches. Please keep in mind that we have not checked all prices globally – at all – differences may exist depending on the region you are in.
If you haven’t yet, please make sure to read our previous Rolex Price Evolution analysis which went into crazy detail of the historical pricing on (new) Rolex wristwatches. In fact, you should go read that now here and when finished jump back into this article as it is a direct follow-up to it and we build upon the same data from that article and Minus4plus6.com
Rolex Price Increase 2020
The latest price increase ranges from reasonable to painful, but that said the brand had spared us from a big increase the past couple of years. Overall you’re looking at an approximate 5 percent increase since the last price update hurled at us from Geneva.
All in all, the increase will certainly not resolve any of the issues we’re having with the ‘shortage’ of the Rolex Stainless Steel models. A 5% increase is not going to stop anyone interested in any of these watches to suddenly change their mind, and Rolex knows that of course.
Invest In Rolex Watches?
The past years there has been an incredibly overheated market for anything related to the Professional models from Rolex. This used to be reserved to a very few watches, say the Daytona, but was never really an issue for watches such as the Rolex Explorer and the Submariner. It is mind-blowing that even for these absolutely mass produced timepieces the market thinks there should be waiting lists.
Worse yet, people are paying ‘above retail’ for stainless steel Rolex watches further exaggerating this market anomaly. On top of that you have (famous) Grey Market dealers shouting that it is a great idea to buy these very watches as an investment vehicle. Because, as the chart shows you, the prices only ever increase. And yes – at very first glance you might think this is a great idea, but good-golly – it really isn’t! And I will show you why:
But wait, I hear you thinking: “Jan, I could have made up to 32% gains!” Well yes, but that would be absolutely terrible performance for the past ten years. If your portfolio manager was not able to increase your stock portfolio’s worth by more than 32% in the past decade – fire him/her immediately! If you had done absolutely nothing the past 10 years except bought the market, say invested in the Dow Jones you would have done much – much better. How much better you ask?
As per Yahoo Finance “the Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF (NYSE: DIA) is up 176.1% in the past decade, and its total return (including dividends) in that time is 247.9%” . That is nearly 250%! Yet somehow you have an entire industry trying to convince you that you should go for the 25% increase instead. This is absolutely mind-blowing but unfortunately not illegal.
So here’s a suggestion for you: Stop buying mass produced Rolex watches thinking of them as a ‘good investment’ because they are ‘rare’ (they aren’t). I assure you there are plenty of much better and safer alternatives to grow your wealth and none of them involve dealing with Grey Market dealers. Buy your watches if you like them. If not, keep looking as there are plenty of other watches and brands out there worth your coin.
This analysis is entirely related to brand new Rolex watches. The Vintage market is of course an entirely different animal (not that there isn’t a lot of false advertising and hype in there either).
Jan, the S&P 500 returned 20% in 2019 alone 😂👍
I know – just making the point and used the same timespan to do so 🤠