Merchants expect positive end to 2016

Fine wine merchants have largely predicted that the market will end in the black this year – though their predictions have been less bullish than in 2015.

The merchants were reacting to an annual survey sent out by Liv-ex. The average prediction is that the market will close on 251.21 – which would represent a 5.4% increase on where it closed in December 2015 (which was at the 238.26 mark).

However, while 86% of merchants in the survey predicted a positive end to 2016, this is just down from the 90% who predicted the same for 2015.

Last year was a largely stable time for fine wine with some hope that increasingly stable prices would lead it to end positively but, in the event, some late stumbles ultimately caused the market to run flat – in fact 0.1% below its 2014 finish.

So far the market has got off on the right foot, particularly for Bordeaux but this was also the case in 2015 and, as Liv-ex noted on its blog, “it remains to be seen whether the Liv-ex 100 can maintain its upward momentum.”