Karlsruhe, Germany-based Chrono24 unveiled last week ChronoPulse, a new valuation tool that competes against WatchCharts. ChronoPulse could be a game changer as it tracks actual sold prices, not listing prices, from its databases of 140 watches from the 14 most profitable manufacturers over the last three years.
Chrono24 calls ChronoPulse the “Dow Jones for luxury watches” and said the watches included in the calculation are in proportion to their overall transaction volumes. While the “weighing” of each watch will be updated every six months, the data in the index is updated daily.
Chrono24 said it developed the new tool with industry experts and data scientists. Among the members of its Index Committee are Dane watch specialist Kristian Haagen, Singapore-based collector Jack Wong and Economics professor Brendan Cunningham.
The German online platform founded 20 years ago has recently reached a valuation of 1 billion euros, touting a few high profiles investors, including Bernard Arnault's family office and professional soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo.
The new tracking tool confirms the overall decline in value of the watch market reported by WatchCharts earlier this month. The biggest loser of the past year among Rolex watches is the yellow Oyster Perpetual 41, a drop in value of 22%, ChronoPulse shows. Surprisingly, the biggest Rolex gain of the past six months has been the Day-Date 36, reference 18238. Its value went up 10%.