Rolex Lovers Splash Out on Used Watches Before Trump Tariffs
Watch enthusiasts snapped up used Rolex SA and Patek Philippe SA timepieces at the end of April, splashing out before possible tariffs from US President Donald Trump.
The watch dealer and trading platform Subdial often sees a flurry of activity after people get their pay checks at the end of each month. In April, the post-payday spike was 160 percent higher than normal trading levels, far above the average 112 percent bump experienced on other pay days over the past year.
The volume growth was particularly strong in the US and UK, Christy Davis, founder of London-based Subdial, said in an interview. 'People heard about the tariffs and went, 'Oh shoot, let's buy now,'' Davis said. 'They waited for pay day and then sales volumes just went through the roof.'
Tariff Watch
The spike in trading for used timepieces after pay day was especially strong in April amid fears of higher tariffs.
ADVERTISEMENT
The phenomenon echoed another trend seen in Switzerland, where watch exports jumped by nearly a fifth in April — with shipments to the US more than doubling ahead of expanded tariffs threatened by Trump. Watches made from precious metals, steel and bimetallic materials, products also targeted by Trump, saw the most growth, according to the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry.
The US jump was likely a one-off response by exporters seeking to avoid higher tariffs, rather than a structural increase in demand, Jean-Philippe Bertschy, an analyst at Vontobel, said in a note. Swiss watch exports fell 6.4 percent to the rest of the world in the month, continuing a weak start to the year.
The secondary watch market has continued its gradual rebound from February's post-pandemic lows. Since reaching that nadir, the Bloomberg Subdial Watch Index has risen about 5.3 percent through late May, returning to levels last seen in October. It remains far from the levels it reached three years ago, when prices of used luxury watches surged as Covid lockdowns ended.
By Tim Loh
Learn more:
Can Swiss Watches Compete on Value?
The price of Swiss watches has continued to rise, leaving watchmakers battling to bolster their value propositions amid a downturn in luxury spending.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
8 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Meta's nuclear deal signals AI's growing energy needs
Meta's deal to help revive an Illinois nuclear power plant was one way of signaling that the parent company of Facebook and Instagram is preparing for a future built with artificial intelligence. Meta's 20-year deal with Constellation Energy follows similar maneuvers from Amazon, Google and Microsoft, but it will take years before nuclear energy can meet the tech industry's insatiable demand for new sources of electricity. AI uses vast amounts of energy, much of which comes from burning fossil fuels, which causes climate change. The unexpected popularity of generative AI products over the past few years has disrupted many tech companies' carefully laid plans to supply their technology with energy sources that don't contribute to climate change. Even as Meta anticipates more nuclear in the future, its more immediate plans rely on natural gas. Entergy, one of the nation's largest utility providers, has been fast-tracking plans to build gas-fired power plants in Louisiana to prepare for a massive Meta data center complex. Is the U.S. ready for nuclear-powered AI? France has touted its ample nuclear power — which produces about 75% of the nation's electricity, the highest level in the world — as a key element in its pitch to be an AI leader. Hosting an AI summit in Paris earlier this year, French President Emmanuel Macron cited President Donald Trump's 'drill baby drill' slogan and offered another: 'Here there's no need to drill, it's just plug baby plug.' In the U.S., however, most of the electricity consumed by data centers relies on fossil fuels — burning natural gas and sometimes coal — according to an April report from the International Energy Agency. As AI demand rises, the main source of new supply over the coming years is expected to be from gas-fired plants, a cheap and reliable source of power but one that produces planet-warming emissions. Renewable energy sources such as solar and wind account for about 24% of data center power in the U.S., while nuclear comprises about 15%, according to the IEA. It will take years before enough climate-friendlier power sources, including nuclear, could start slowing the expansion of fossil fuel power generation. A report released by the U.S. Department of Energy late last year estimated that the electricity needed for data centers in the U.S. tripled over the past decade and is projected to double or triple again by 2028 when it could consume up to 12% of the nation's electricity. Why does AI need so much energy? It takes a lot of computing power to make an AI chatbot and the systems they're built on, such as Meta's Llama. It starts with a process called training or pretraining — the 'P' in ChatGPT — that involves AI systems 'learning' from the patterns of huge troves of data. To do that, they need specialized computer chips — usually graphics processors, or GPUs — that can run many calculations at a time on a network of devices in communication with each other. Once trained, a generative AI tool still needs electricity to do the work, such as when you ask a chatbot to compose a document or generate an image. That process is called inferencing. A trained AI model must take in new information and make inferences from what it already knows to produce a response. All of that computing takes a lot of electricity and generates a lot of heat. To keep it cool enough to work properly, data centers need air conditioning. That can require even more electricity, so most data center operators look for other cooling techniques that usually involve pumping in water. Sign in to access your portfolio
CNN
11 minutes ago
- CNN
Sen. Coons: ‘President Trump's bill certainly is big, but it's not beautiful'
Democratic Sen. Chris Coons slams President Trump's tax bill as it makes its way through the Senate and talks with CNN's Wolf Blitzer about why Republicans are still more trusted to handle the economy.
Los Angeles Times
13 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
Trump pushes a July 4th deadline for big tax bill as senators dig in
WASHINGTON — President Trump wants his 'big, beautiful' bill of tax breaks and spending cuts on his desk to be signed into law by the Fourth of July, and he's pushing the slow-rolling Senate to make it happen sooner rather than later. Trump met with Senate Majority Leader John Thune at the White House early this week and has been dialing senators for one-on-one chats, using both the carrot and stick to nudge, badger and encourage them to act. But it's still a long road ahead for the 1,000-page-plus package. 'His question to me was, How do you think the bill's going to go in the Senate?' Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said about his call with Trump. 'Do you think there's going to be problems?' It's a potentially tumultuous three-week sprint for senators preparing to put their own imprint on the massive Republican package that cleared the House late last month by a single vote. The senators have been meeting for weeks behind closed doors, including as they returned to Washington late Monday, to revise the package ahead of what is expected to be a similarly narrow vote in the Senate. 'Passing THE ONE, BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL is a Historic Opportunity to turn our Country around,' Trump posted on social media. He urged them Monday 'to work as fast as they can to get this Bill to MY DESK before the Fourth of JULY.' Thune, like House Speaker Mike Johnson, has few votes to spare from the Senate's slim, 53-seat GOP majority. Democrats are waging an all-out political assault on GOP proposals to cut Medicaid, food stamps and green energy investments to help pay for more than $4.5 trillion in tax cuts — with many lawmakers being hammered at boisterous town halls back home. 'It'd be nice if we could have everybody on board to do it, but, you know, individual members are going to stake out their positions,' Thune said Tuesday. 'But in the end, we have to succeed. Failure's not an option. We've got to get to 51. So we'll figure out the path forward to do that over the next couple of weeks.' At its core, the package seeks to extend the tax cuts approved in 2017, during Trump's first term at the White House, and add new ones the presidents campaigned on, including no taxes on tips and others. It also includes a massive build-up of $350 billion for border security, deportations and national security. To defray the lost tax revenue to the government and avoid piling onto the nation's $36 trillion debt load, Republicans want reduce federal spending by imposing work requirements for some Americans who rely on government safety net services. Estimates are 8.6 million people would no longer have health care and nearly 4 million would lose Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program benefits, known as SNAP. The package also would raise the nation's debt limit by $4 trillion to allow more borrowing to pay the bills. Senate Democratic Leader Charles E. Schumer said Trump's bill 'is ugly to its very core.' Schumer said Tuesday it's a 'lie' that the cuts won't hurt Americans. 'Behind the smoke and mirrors lies a cruel and draconian truth: tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy paid for by gutting health care for millions of Americans,' said the New York senator. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office is expected to soon provide an overall analysis of the package's impacts on the government balance sheets, particular its rising annual deficits. But Republicans are ready to blast those findings from the congressional scorekeeper as flawed. Trump Tuesday switched to tougher tactics, deriding the holdout Republican senators to get on board. The president laid into Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, the libertarian-leaning deficit hawk who has made a career of arguing against government spending. Paul wants the package's $4 trillion increase to the debt ceiling out of the bill. 'Rand votes NO on everything, but never has any practical or constructive ideas. His ideas are actually crazy (losers!).' Trump posted. The July 4th deadline is not only aspirational for the president, it's all but mandatory for his Treasury Department. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has warned Congress that the nation will run out of money to pay its bills if the debt ceiling, now at $36 trillion, is not lifted by mid-July or early August to allow more borrowing. Bessent has also been meeting behind closed doors with senators and GOP leadership. Thune acknowledged Tuesday that lifting the debt ceiling is not up for debate. 'It's got to be done,' the South Dakota senator said. The road ahead is also a test for Thune who, like Johnson, is a newer leader in Congress and among the many Republicans adjusting their own priorities with Trump's return to the White House. While Johnson has warned against massive changes to the package, Thune faces demands from his senators for adjustments. To make most of the tax cuts permanent — particularly the business tax breaks that are the Senate priorities — senators may shave some of Trump's proposed new tax breaks on automobile loans or overtime pay, which are policies less prized by some senators. There are also discussions about altering the $40,000 cap that the House proposed for state and local deductions, known as SALT, which are important to lawmakers in high-tax New York, California and other states, but less so among GOP senators. 'We're having all those discussions,' said Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., another key voice in the debate. Hawley is a among a group of senators, including Maine Sen. Susan Collins and Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who have raised concerns about the Medicaid changes that could boot people from health insurance. A potential copay of up to $35 for Medicaid services that was part of the House package, as well as a termination of a provider tax that many states rely on to help fund rural hospitals, have also raised concerns. 'The best way to not be accused of cutting Medicaid is to not cut Medicaid,' Hawley said. Collins said she is reviewing the details. There's also a House provision that would allow the auction of spectrum bandwidth that some senators oppose. Mascaro and Jalonick write for the Associated Press. AP writer Matt Brown contributed to this report.
