In Depth · Breguet

Breguet was August's only major secondary-market mover above one per cent

WatchCharts puts the brand up 1.2 per cent for the month, inside a market that moved only 0.4 per cent overall.

Hen & Mills Editorial · 3 min read · 7 September 2026

• Breguet rose 1.2 per cent in August, the only major brand tracked by WatchCharts to move more than one per cent.
• The wider market gained 0.4 per cent, while Rolex, Patek Philippe and Audemars Piguet posted smaller increases.
• Breguet's recent gains sit beside a negative three-year return, so the data shows a recovery rather than a completed reset.

WatchCharts published its September market update on 4 September 2026, and Breguet supplied the one conspicuous move in an otherwise restrained August. Its major-brand index rose 1.2 per cent during the month. No other one of the 28 major brands tracked by the report moved by more than one per cent in either direction.

That does not make Breguet the new centre of the secondary market, nor does one month establish a lasting repricing. It does make the brand worth examining. The broader WatchCharts Overall Market Index gained just 0.4 per cent, while Rolex rose 0.5 per cent, Patek Philippe 0.3 per cent and Audemars Piguet 0.2 per cent.

One outlier in a quiet month

Eighteen of the 28 major brands finished August in positive territory, according to WatchCharts. The interesting part is the small size of most moves. The market advanced without the sort of violent swing that can make a headline number look healthier or weaker than the watches beneath it.

Breguet stood apart at 1.2 per cent. The gain was more than twice Rolex's 0.5 per cent and three times the overall market's 0.4 per cent. Those comparisons matter because the three largest brands by secondary-market transaction value also moved up, but only slightly. August was a broad, quiet rise with one visible leader.

Collection data adds another useful layer. WatchCharts' Breguet index covers the brand's 30 leading references by estimated annual transaction value. Its published collection breakdown lists Classique, Tradition and La Marine. The result is a brand-level measure, not a claim that every Breguet reference became 1.2 per cent more valuable.

Some individual collections moved much further. Omega's Constellation, TAG Heuer's Formula 1 and Tudor's Prince each gained 4.4 per cent, while Jaeger-LeCoultre's Rendez-Vous fell 1.5 per cent and Breitling's Premier lost 1.6 per cent. Those sharper changes are collection results, while Breguet's 1.2 per cent result is a whole-brand measure. They show why a collection result and a whole-brand result answer different questions, even when both are useful signals.

The rolling picture is stronger, but incomplete

The live Breguet Market Index was at 19,437 on 4 September. Its rolling returns were positive over one month, three months, six months and one year: 1.1, 3.5, 4.8 and 5.8 per cent respectively. The one-month figure differs slightly from the 1.2 per cent calendar-August result because the measurement windows are not identical.

The longer view prevents the rebound from becoming a fairy tale. Breguet's index remained down 4.9 per cent over three years and 0.9 per cent over five years. In other words, recent buyers have seen a firmer market, but the basket has not erased the declines experienced over the longer horizons.

That split is more informative than the August ranking alone. A brand can lead one month because it is recovering from a low base, because a cluster of heavily weighted references moves together, or because supply and demand briefly tighten. The published figures show the direction and scale. They do not, by themselves, identify a single cause.

What the index actually measures

WatchCharts builds a brand index from the 30 watches with the greatest estimated market share in its dataset, based on annual transaction value. Each reference is weighted by that estimated share, and the index records the weighted movement of market prices in US dollars. The basket and weights are reset each calendar year.

That construction makes the index useful for direction, especially when comparing the same brand across time. It also creates limits. A high-value, frequently traded reference can matter more than a model with little transaction value inside the dataset.

The index value itself is normalised so the latest reading resembles the average US-dollar price of the basket. It is not a fund, a quoted security or a price at which every constituent can be bought or sold. The 19,437 reading is therefore a convenient scale for the index, not a Breguet catalogue average.

What August changes

The one-month leaderboard is the least useful way to read this result. Breguet's one-year gain and its three-year and five-year losses place August inside a recovery that is measurable but unfinished. The index says the brand's representative basket has strengthened recently; it says nothing about the outcome for a particular owner, buyer or reference.

That distinction sets the next test. If positive shorter-horizon returns continue while the negative three-year and five-year figures narrow, the recovery case becomes stronger. If the monthly lead disappears without those longer measures improving, August will look like noise. Breguet has earned scrutiny, not a victory lap.