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Your evening read on the luxury and collectibles markets, by the numbers. Tonight: a US–Iran peace deal sent markets rallying, but luxury stocks gave back most of their gains by the close. The real standout was gold, which pushed to a new high — part of the same flight to hard assets that produced a record-breaking weekend in the watch salerooms.
(Prices: Yahoo Finance v8, all closes final after the 4 PM ET bell, June 15; prior = June 12 close.)
Good evening. It's Monday, June 15. I'm Sharon, and this is Closing Price from ALT/FNDATA.
Tonight: a US–Iran peace deal sent markets rallying, but luxury stocks gave back most of their gains by the close. The real standout was gold, which pushed to a new high, on a weekend that also delivered record-breaking results in the watch salerooms.
European luxury opened sharply higher on news that the US and Iran had reached a deal to end their war, then faded to a mixed close. In Paris, LVMH, ticker MC on Euronext Paris, closed at 513 EUR, up about 0.4%, well off its opening highs. Hermès, ticker RMS, closed at 1,712 EUR, up about 0.9%. But Kering, ticker KER, gave back its gains to close at 262 EUR, down about 2.1%.
In Zurich, Richemont, ticker CFR, closed up about 1%, and Swatch, ticker UHR, up about 1.7%. In London, Watches of Switzerland, ticker WOSG, edged up about 0.5%, while Burberry, ticker BRBY, closed at 1,154 pence, down about 1.8%.
In New York, the US-listed luxury names were mixed. Ferrari, ticker RACE, was the day's standout, closing at 369 dollars, up about 4%. The American fashion houses had a solid day, too: Tapestry, the owner of Coach, ticker TPR, rose about 2.4%, and Ralph Lauren, ticker RL, gained about 2%. On the other side, Capri Holdings, ticker CPRI, the parent of Versace and Michael Kors, slipped about 1.3%; Signet, ticker SIG, the jewelry retailer, fell about 1.7%; and Zegna, ticker ZGN, was roughly flat.
And one telling contrast in the watch world. Even as watches set records at auction over the weekend, shares of the watchmaker Movado, ticker MOV, fell about 4%. The boom is in the secondary market, the saleroom, not in the companies making and selling new watches.
But the real story today was in hard assets. Gold climbed to a new high, closing near 4,330 dollars an ounce, up about 2.8%. Silver jumped about 3.2%, to around 70 dollars.
And that same appetite for hard assets is showing up in the saleroom. Over the weekend, Phillips held the highest-grossing watch auction in US history, 75.8 million dollars with every lot sold, and a single F.P. Journe went for a record 13.9 million dollars. And the strength is broad, not just the trophy lots. Our own data shows that over the past 90 days, Christie's has sold 99% of everything it brought to auction, 395 of 399 lots. It is really one impulse showing up in two markets. When the world feels uncertain, investors and collectors alike move money into physical things that hold their value, from gold to rare watches. These records are not separate stories; they are the same flight to hard assets. Even Rolex is leaning in. It has just raised the prices of its gold watches again.
One mover to flag. Frasers Group, which has bid to take over Hugo Boss, fell about 4.9% in London, to 753 pence. Hugo Boss itself closed roughly flat.
Across the broader market, the day's driver was the peace deal. The United States and Iran reached an interim deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and halt their war. Stocks rallied, oil sank to a three-month low, and bond yields and the dollar both eased. And a sharp warning from European industry. Airbus opened a new assembly line in Toulouse today, but its chief executive, Guillaume Faury, used the moment to criticize Europe's competitiveness, citing high labor and energy costs and, in his words, regulatory barriers that are "absolutely horrible." He warned against doing to aviation what Europe did to its car industry. It is a reminder of the cost pressures facing European companies, luxury houses included.
Across our board, European luxury was mixed after fading from a sharply higher open, the US names were led by Ferrari, and gold and silver both pushed to new highs.
Looking ahead, Sotheby's Important Watches caps a remarkable week of watch sales, and the RM Sotheby's Sealed auction, with a 1969 Lamborghini Miura, closes on June 17.
That's it on Closing Price for today, Monday, June 15. Open Bid returns tomorrow morning at 6 AM Eastern, and our weekly Art Market show also publishes tomorrow.
For more insights on the top stories in today's Closing Price, check out the ALT/FNDATA market index and datasets, which cover the secondary-market signals behind the luxury names we follow. You can start for free in our data sandbox. To get started, reach us on our website, or by email at info@altfndata.com.
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I'm Sharon, from ALT/FNDATA. I'll talk with you in the next episode.
