For many, August is a month where one takes a back seat from life for a bit of rest and recuperation. It might be said that for the past 17 months, the Liv-ex Fine Wine 100 has been doing a fair amount of resting but has shown few signs of recuperation – in August 2014 that changed: the Liv-ex Fine Wine 100 rose by 0.94%, its first monthly gain since March 2013.
As shown in the Liv-ex 100 movers’ table, there were price gains in Bordeaux and in particular for Lafite and Montrose. Interestingly, two of the top movers in August (Lafite 2009 and Leoville Las Cases 2006) were amongst the biggest declines in July. Montrose 2010, which has seen a boom in trade activity since its upgrade to 100 RP points on Friday also notably makes it onto the movers table, calculated before the upgrade.
The Liv-ex 50 showed the biggest gain amongst the indices with a rise of 1.31%, suggesting that the First Growths are at last beginning to draw out the buyers. The Liv-ex Fine Wine 1000 index – the broadest measure of the market – by contrast, was flat. The Champagne 50 was the weakest of the sub-indices falling 1.44%, taking it down 4% from its peak in December 2013. The Rest of the World 50 – the best performing of the Liv-ex 1000 sub-indices over the past two years – fell 0.5%.
