HAGI TOP INDEX

THROUGH October all market segments traded down with the exception of the HAGI Mercedes-Benz Classic index, which made a minimal gain of 0.97%. Elsewhere losses ranged from 1.30% to 4.12%, with the HAGI Top in the middle ground losing 2.82%, against a backdrop of continued thin trading volumes throughout the market.

While September represented a new market peak for the HAGI Top of 357.59, the overall picture is of a market that has been trending sideways for close to two years, with performance broadly converging across segments. From index inception in 2008 to date, variation across the HAGI Ferrari, Porsche and Top, which is composed of 50 models from a range of marques, is no more than 3.97%. This is significant as HAGI historic market analysis back to 1980 reveals a far wider span of performance across marques than is the case today. This may suggest that today’s more sophisticated collectors are increasingly pragmatic and less blinkered by brand, making choices based more on perceived merits and virtues rather than marque, or even era.

In the case of the Top index, year-to-date performance is minus 1.21%, and year-on-year is down 0.76%, which is considerably better than global equities and elsewhere broadly commensurate with other financial mechanisms which have also consolidated against a backdrop of reduced global liquidity flows.

In the HAGI Top, as across the collectorgrade classic car market, it remains to be seen whether 2018 will end in credit or deficit. However, while price and trading volumes are under pressure, activity, participation and many associated services remain buoyant. Time to drive a bargain, perhaps. See www.historicautogroup.com for more.