Charted: Luxury Goods by Appreciation in Value Over 10 Years
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Some of the world’s ultra-wealthy spend their money on luxury goods such as fine wines, expensive watches, or one-of-a-kind art pieces as a passion, but others consider them investments—and their returns do often end up paying off.
We dive into the 10-year performance of various luxury good classes as of Q4 2023, according to the Knight Frank Luxury Investment Index released as part of the 2024 Wealth Report. The 10-year return of the S&P 500 was included for additional context.
Rare Whisky Bottles Have Outperformed the S&P 500 Since 2013
Knight Frank’s index uses the weighted average of each individual asset, tracking sales of reference brands and pieces for each asset.
| Asset | Price Change (Q4 2013–23) |
|---|---|
| 🥃 Rare Whiskey | +280% |
| 🍷 Wine | +146% |
| ⌚ Watches | +138% |
| 🖼️ Art | +105% |
| 🏎️ Cars | +82% |
| 👜 Handbags | +67% |
| 🪙 Coins | +56% |
| 🛋️ Furniture | +40% |
| 💍 Jewelery | +37% |
| 💎 Colored Diamonds | +8% |
| S&P 500 | +158% |
Over the past 10 years, rare whisky (or whiskey, depending on where it was made) has been the best performing luxury asset, appreciating by 280% and even besting the S&P 500.
Numerous sale records have been broken at auctions since COVID-19, with collectors sometimes shelling out millions for a single bottle. In November 2023 for example, a bottle of The Macallan Valerio Adami 60 Year Old (of which only 40 bottles were produced) sold for $2.7 million at a Sotheby’s auction. Before bidding commenced, Sotheby’s had given the bottle a high estimate of $1.5M.
Fine wine and luxury watches were the next two best performing luxury goods by 10-year returns, at +146% and +138% respectively.
At the bottom were jewelry (+37%), such as rings and necklaces, and colored diamonds (+8%), including rare pink and blue diamonds.
