3.5 times hotter: Cartier leads the pre-owned recovery
Chrono24's June ChronoPulse index has Cartier's secondary-market heat building 3.5 times faster than any other tracked brand — up 5.9 percent on the month, near 10 percent over six months — with all 13 tracked brands now positive over the half.
By The Counter Desk
What changed
The pre-owned watch market has spent three years as the industry's cold plunge; the June data says the water is warming, and the surprise is who's making it boil.
What it means
- For jewelers who trade pre-owned, the June table is a stocking list — shaped Cartier first, complicated Jaeger-LeCoultre second, and patience with sports steel, which recovers last because it fell from highest. The number to respect is that 28.1 percent gap: it is the margin the market is offering today and expects to close tomorrow.
- Buy the heat while it still comes with a discount.
Key figures
| Cartier's heat vs any rival | 3.5× |
|---|---|
| Cartier, month on month | +5.9% |
| brands positive over six months | 13 of 13 |
| Patek Philippe on the year | +12.2% |
Source: Chrono24 ChronoPulse, June
The water is warming, and Cartier is making it boil
Chrono24's ChronoPulse index — which tracks roughly 140 models across 13 major luxury brands — shows Cartier's market heat building 3.5 times faster than any other brand it follows, per WatchPro's Wednesday report: up 5.9 percent month on month in June and nearly 10 percent over six months, against a market average of 1.2 and 5.5 percent respectively.
Six-month market heat · % change
Source: Chrono24 ChronoPulse, June
The breadth matters as much as the leader
The breadth matters as much as the leader. Ten of the thirteen tracked brands moved higher in June, and — per Chrono24's head of brand engagement Balazs Ferenczi — "every brand we track is now in positive territory" over the six-month window.
Patek Philippe is up 6.8 percent over six months and 12.2 percent on the year; Jaeger-LeCoultre has recovered 8.6 percent. After the great 2022–2024 deflation, the secondary market has stopped being a short and started being a base.
| Figure | |
|---|---|
| Cartier | ≈10% |
| Jaeger-Lecoultre | +8.6% |
| Patek Philippe | +6.8% |
| Market Average | +5.5% |
All 13 tracked brands now positive over the half The cold plunge warms: Cartier's near-10 percent half against a 5.5 percent market. Carat Capital graphics desk.
Cartier owns the shaped-watch moment — at a discount
Cartier's outperformance has a shape. The brand owns the shaped-watch moment — Tank, Panthère, Baignoire, Crash — exactly the silhouettes the auction market and the under-forty buyer have been bidding up while round sports steel consolidates.
And the arbitrage is still open: pre-owned Cartier trades roughly 28.1 percent below retail on WatchCharts and Morgan Stanley's first-quarter data, a discount that functions as an invitation. Heat plus discount is how rallies start; heat minus discount is how they end. Cartier is still in the first phase.
The corporate echo arrived the same day, with Richemont — Cartier's owner — printing a 20 percent group quarter and its watch division back to 8 percent growth.
Primary and secondary markets confirming each other is the configuration the trade has not seen since 2021: new-watch demand pulling, resale values firming beneath it, and the gap between the two narrow enough that neither cannibalizes the other.
The story so far
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Method
All 13 tracked brands now positive over the half