In one paragraphThe second quarterly edition of the BQ Watches Pre-Owned Market Index, pooling April, May and June 2026 transactional data. Extends the Transaction Price Index with a third data point, delivers stratified stock-route days-to-sell reporting, and publishes the fullest Rolex Liquidity Report the index has produced to date.
The Rolex Daytona Transaction Price Index sat at 75 in Q2 2026, the third consecutive quarter within the 74-75 band and the strongest evidence yet that the multi-year Daytona price decline has bottomed. The Q2 2026 quarterly edition delivers on the stratified stock-route commitment set in the Q1 2026 quarterly: all-Rolex owned-only median days-to-sell for the pooled quarter was 63 days, against an all-stock composite of 52 days. All eight major Rolex reference families (Datejust, Submariner, GMT-Master, Daytona, Oyster Perpetual, Yacht-Master, Air-King and Day-Date) met the pooled-quarter suppression threshold — the fullest Liquidity Report in the index series to date.
The Rolex Daytona Transaction Price Index has stabilised at ~75 for three consecutive quarters. The Daytona sat at index 74 in Q2 2025, 74 in Q1 2026 and 75 in Q2 2026 (with Q1 2024 = 100 baseline). Three consecutive quarterly readings within a two-point band is the strongest evidence the index series has produced that the multi-year Daytona price correction — a defining story of the UK pre-owned Rolex market across 2024 and 2025 — has bottomed. The Q1 2024 baseline reflected the peak of the speculative Daytona premium; the ~75 reading three quarters running suggests the market has now normalised at a lower but stable level.
Stratified stock-route days-to-sell reporting debuts at pooled-quarter resolution, delivering the Q1 2026 commitment. All-Rolex owned-only median days-to-sell across Q2 2026 was 63 days (N=336), against an all-stock composite of 52 days (N=392); consignment-route Rolex sales recorded a 0-day median (N=56), consistent with the structural pattern of consignment stock not sitting in BQ Watches' working inventory in the same way as owned stock. At family level, publishable stratified pairs are supported for the Datejust (owned 111 days, consignment 0 days) and Submariner (owned 36 days, consignment 0 days). The owned-only reading is the cleaner "in-inventory market signal"; the all-stock composite preserves comparability across years where prior-year data does not carry a consignment flag.
All-Rolex Q2 2026 turnover ran materially faster than both prior years' Q2 pooled readings. The all-stock median of 52 days compares to 81 days in Q2 2025 and 90 days in Q2 2024 — the second consecutive quarter in which pooled Rolex turnover at BQ Watches has run at approximately half the two-year-earlier pace. The owned-only reading of 63 days is a materially different absolute level but shows the same direction against the closest available prior-year comparison. The multi-quarter acceleration pattern that emerged through Q1 2026 continues to hold at pooled resolution.
All eight major Rolex reference families met the pooled-quarter suppression threshold — the fullest Liquidity Report in the index series to date. The Datejust, Submariner, GMT-Master, Daytona, Oyster Perpetual, Yacht-Master, Air-King and Day-Date families all cleared the ten-transaction threshold across the pooled quarter. Air-King made its first at-threshold appearance in any quarterly edition, transacting at a 35-day median. Day-Date, which met threshold across Q1 2024 and Q1 2026 but not Q2 2025, returned to publishable status at 234 days — the slowest all-Rolex reading in the pooled quarter, sustaining the pattern of Rolex dress models transacting materially slower than the sport families.
The most-traded Rolex reference list rotated materially from Q1 to Q2, with sport models displacing the Datejust references that dominated Q1. The Rolex Submariner 126610LN took the top rank in Q2 2026 (from second in Q1 2026), followed by the Rolex GMT-Master 126710GRNR "Sprite" making its first appearance at Q2 quarterly threshold, the Rolex Submariner 124060 (no-date) also new at threshold, and the Rolex GMT-Master 126710BLNR "Pepsi" moving from the Q1 top rank to fourth in Q2. The Rolex Datejust references that occupied three of the six positions in the Q1 reference list — 126334, 126300 and 16233 — all fell below threshold at Q2 pooled resolution, with Datejust transactions spread more thinly across a broader reference set.
Cartier's Q2 2026 quarterly share of approximately 10% confirmed the multi-year rise storyline at pooled resolution. Cartier accounted for 9.7% of Q2 2026 transactions at BQ Watches (unrounded), compared to 7.8% in Q2 2025 and 6.9% in Q2 2024 — three consecutive Q2 pooled readings showing a consistent upward pattern. The Q2 2026 reading is the first pooled Q2 reading to sit above the 9% level. Cartier has now held a top-three brand position across every published edition of the index series (six monthlies plus both quarterlies).
For month-by-month detail, the monthly editions remain the canonical source.
April 2026 edition: the first series-recorded displacement of the Rolex Datejust from the top within-Rolex rank, taken by the Submariner. All-stock all-Rolex median days-to-sell of 35 days recorded as the series low with the all-stock methodology in place at the time; owned-only recomputation subsequently confirmed a materially different reading of 53 days for the same month. Series-record fast GMT-Master reading (all-stock 16 days; owned-only 19). In-person contact rebounded to approximately 35% — subsequently framed as a single-month spike after the May and June readings normalised.
May 2026 edition: the Datejust reclaimed the top within-Rolex rank from the Submariner, confirming April's displacement as a single-month event. Fifth consecutive month of all-stock YoY improvement, though with month-on-month moderation from April's series low. In-person contact normalised to approximately 25%. Cartier marginally ahead of Omega on unrounded share for the first time in the series. Customer-side ChatGPT attribution recorded zero for the first time.
June 2026 edition: the first monthly edition to publish dual all-stock and owned-only days-to-sell figures at family level. Cartier decisively separated from Omega in the rounded brand mix (approximately 10% versus approximately 5%). Rolex Oyster Perpetual met the monthly suppression threshold for the first time in the series. Rolex Daytona returned to threshold after May's below-threshold reading. Sixth consecutive month of all-stock YoY improvement, though with the narrowest YoY margin in the series (13%).
Across the pooled quarter, brand composition settled into a pattern consistent with Rolex's structural dominance and Cartier's continued rise.
Brand share rounded to the nearest 5%. Only brands that met the pooled-quarter suppression threshold in Q2 2026 are named individually.
Cartier's 9.7% unrounded reading is the highest pooled Q2 reading in the index series and continues the multi-year rise (6.9% in Q2 2024, 7.8% in Q2 2025). Omega's Q2 2026 unrounded reading (7.3%) is broadly consistent with prior Q2 pooled readings (6.9% in Q2 2024, 6.7% in Q2 2025), with Cartier now clearly separated from Omega on the pooled view. Tudor's 3.5% Q2 2026 reading rounds to approximately 5% but continues the multi-year unrounded decline first published in the Q1 2026 quarterly edition (7.1% in Q2 2024 → 3.8% in Q2 2025 → 3.5% in Q2 2026).
The full Liquidity Report becomes possible at Q2 quarterly resolution. All eight major Rolex reference families met the suppression threshold across Q2 2026, ranked by transaction share within Rolex:
The Datejust retained the top rank at pooled resolution, holding it in both quarterly editions of the index series to date. The Submariner consolidated second place with approximately one in four Rolex transactions across the quarter. The GMT-Master took third. The Rolex Air-King made its first at-threshold appearance in any quarterly edition, and Day-Date returned to publishable status at pooled resolution after falling below threshold in Q2 2025.
| Reference family | All-stock Q2 2026 | Owned-only Q2 2026 | All-stock Q2 2025 | All-stock Q2 2024 | Direction (all-stock YoY) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rolex Submariner | 29 | 36 | 69 | 48 | Faster (vs both) |
| Rolex GMT-Master | 32 | 33 | 57 | 53 | Faster (vs both) |
| Rolex Air-King | 35 | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a (first at-threshold appearance) |
| Rolex Daytona | 37 | 56 | 81 | 46 | Faster (vs both) |
| Rolex Yacht-Master | 55 | 56 | 121 | 160 | Faster (vs both) |
| Rolex Oyster Perpetual | 59 | 65 | 31 | 122 | Mixed (slower vs Q2 25, faster vs Q2 24) |
| Rolex Datejust | 98 | 111 | 105 | 134 | Faster (vs both) |
| Rolex Day-Date | 234 | 247 | n/a | 156 | Slower (vs Q2 24) |
| All Rolex (combined) | 52 | 63 | 81 | 90 | Faster (all-stock) |
The all-Rolex all-stock composite of 52 days is 36% faster than Q2 2025 and 42% faster than Q2 2024. The owned-only composite of 63 days is materially higher than the all-stock reading — the ten-day difference reflects the compositional effect of consignment-route transactions recording close to zero days in stock — but shows the same overall direction against the prior-year all-stock comparisons. At family level, seven of the eight above-threshold families transacted faster on all-stock terms than in Q2 2025, and every above-threshold family transacted faster than Q2 2024 with the sole exception of Day-Date, which continues to sit well above the rest of the Rolex family range at 234 days. The Rolex Oyster Perpetual is the only family to record a slower all-stock reading than Q2 2025 (59 vs 31 days), reflecting an unusually fast Q2 2025 reading rather than any material change in Q2 2026's pattern.
Consignment-route stratified reporting is limited to families where the pooled Q2 2026 consignment sample met the suppression threshold. Only the Rolex Datejust and the Rolex Submariner cleared the ten-observation threshold on the consignment side of the stratification:
Consignment-route readings are structurally close to zero across all published cells because the arrangement typically begins close to the eventual sale and the watch does not sit in BQ Watches' working inventory in the same way as owned stock. The stratified pattern confirms rather than surprises. Future quarterly editions will publish stratified readings for additional families as consignment sample size supports it.
The most-traded specific Rolex references at BQ Watches across Q2 2026, listed by rank in order of completed transactions across the quarter:
The Q2 2026 reference list rotates materially from the Q1 2026 list. The GMT-Master 126710BLNR "Pepsi", which took the Q1 top rank, moved to fourth place in Q2; the Submariner 126610LN moved up from second to top; the GMT-Master 126710GRNR "Sprite" and the Submariner 124060 both made their first at-threshold appearances in the reference-level series. The Q1 reference list included three Datejust references (126334, 126300 and the vintage 16233) — all three fell below the ten-observation threshold at Q2 pooled resolution, with Datejust transactions spread more thinly across a wider reference set through the second quarter. The Q2 top-four reference list is composed entirely of Rolex sport-model references — the clearest sport-model-versus-Datejust rotation the reference-level series has produced to date.
The Transaction Price Index extends into a second quarter of publication with a third data point. All six of the reference families that supported the Q1 2026 quarterly index continue to be reported; Q2 2026 also adds Q2 2024 and Q2 2025 intermediate data points against the Q1 2024 = 100 baseline.
| Reference family | Q1 2024 (baseline) | Q2 2024 | Q1 2025 | Q2 2025 | Q1 2026 | Q2 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rolex Datejust | 100 | 102 | 115 | 104 | 123 | 122 |
| Rolex Submariner | 100 | 100 | 102 | 104 | 106 | 105 |
| Rolex GMT-Master | 100 | 87 | 95 | 84 | 99 | 99 |
| Rolex Oyster Perpetual | 100 | 85 | 104 | 90 | 100 | 98 |
| Rolex Daytona | 100 | 78 | 84 | 74 | 74 | 75 |
| Rolex Sea-Dweller | 100 | n/a | 94 | 72 | 88 | n/a |
Index points rounded to the nearest 1. Median sale prices underlying the index are not published in absolute terms; only the indexed value is reported.
The Q2 2026 Transaction Price Index confirms several patterns the Q1 quarterly edition first surfaced. The Rolex Datejust has held at index 122-123 across two consecutive quarters — the strongest sustained position among the major families and the clearest evidence in the two-year window that the Datejust family has re-priced upward from the 2024 baseline in a durable rather than speculative manner. The Rolex Daytona has now recorded three consecutive quarterly readings within the 74-75 band (Q2 2025, Q1 2026, Q2 2026), and this is the finding likely to attract the most attention from the wider watch market — the Q1 2024 baseline reflected the peak of the speculative Daytona premium, and three consecutive quarters at ~75 is the strongest evidence the index series has produced that the multi-year Daytona correction has bottomed at a materially lower but stable level. The Rolex GMT-Master shows a clean step-change out of its 2024 and 2025 Q2 seasonal dip pattern: 87 (Q2 2024) → 84 (Q2 2025) → 99 (Q2 2026), essentially returning to the Q1 2024 baseline. The Rolex Submariner has drifted mildly upward through the two years but has never left a five-point band around baseline. The Rolex Oyster Perpetual has moved between an 85-104 range with no clear directional signal. The Rolex Sea-Dweller falls below Q2 pooled threshold in 2024 and 2026 and cannot be reported for those quarters.
As previously reported in our Q1 2026 quarterly edition, the Transaction Price Index is the first published source, to BQ Watches' knowledge, that reports movement in transacted prices in the UK pre-owned luxury watch market. It differs from major international indices such as the WatchCharts Overall Market Index and the Subdial Bloomberg Watch Index, which report movement in asking prices on listing platforms.
Consignment-route stock accounted for approximately 25% of completed sales at BQ Watches across the pooled Q2 2026 quarter (24.7% unrounded), broadly consistent with the March, April, May and June 2026 monthly readings and confirming the dimension has settled into an approximately 25-30% band across every edition in which it has been published:
Stratified days-to-sell at family and pooled-Rolex level is published above in the Liquidity Report table.
The quarterly resolution clarifies the multi-year channel-mix pattern that monthly volatility partially obscures. Across the pooled Q2 2026 quarter, the contact method through which a customer engaged BQ Watches before completing a sale broke down approximately as follows:
Comparing to Q2 2025 (telephone ~35%, web ~30%, in-person ~25%) and Q2 2024 (telephone ~40%, in-person ~30%, web ~25%), the multi-year direction is a clear ten-percentage-point rise in the website's share (from approximately 25% in Q2 2024 to approximately 35% in Q2 2026) at the expense of telephone (from approximately 40% to approximately 35%). In-person contact has held broadly stable across the three years within a 25-30% band. The parity between website and telephone that Q1 2026 first surfaced now extends across a second consecutive quarterly view.
This second quarterly edition of the BQ Watches Pre-Owned Market Index pools transactional data from April, May and June 2026, with year-on-year comparisons against the equivalent pooled quarters in 2025 and 2024. All published metrics meet the BQ Watches Pre-Owned Market Index suppression threshold of at least ten observations per cell, applied uniformly across brand, family, channel, contact-method, reference and stock-route dimensions. The edition publishes share, rank, index and median figures only.
The stratified days-to-sell dimension published in this edition — owned-only and all-stock composites, plus family-level stratification where consignment sample size supports it — was committed in the Q1 2026 quarterly edition and applies from this edition forward. Prior quarterly and monthly editions (Q1 2026 and January to May 2026) are not retroactively updated; the June 2026 monthly edition introduced dual reporting at monthly resolution, and this Q2 quarterly edition delivers the pooled-quarter equivalent.
The Transaction Price Index continues to be reported against the Q1 2024 = 100 baseline established in the Q1 2026 quarterly edition. This quarter's edition adds Q2 2024 and Q2 2025 intermediate data points, and the current Q2 2026 reading. Median absolute prices underlying the index are not published; only the indexed values are reported.
For the full methodology, glossary, suppression rules, and standing series-level FAQ items, see the canonical methodology page: About the BQ Watches Pre-Owned Market Index.
Three consecutive quarterly readings at 74-75 (Q2 2025, Q1 2026, Q2 2026) against the Q1 2024 baseline of 100 indicates that the median transacted Rolex Daytona price at BQ Watches has held broadly steady for nine to twelve months, having previously fallen from the Q1 2024 peak. For sellers, the reading suggests that the wait for the Daytona market to "recover" toward 2024 levels is unlikely to be rewarded in the near term but that further material downside also appears unlikely; the market has settled. For buyers, the reading suggests that the current pre-owned Daytona price is close to a stable level rather than a moving target — negotiation-room considerations should reflect that stability. As Spencer notes above, whether the pattern holds into Q3 2026 is the confirmatory question.
Because consignment-route transactions typically record close to zero days in stock — the arrangement between BQ Watches and the original owner typically begins close to the eventual sale, and the watch does not sit in BQ Watches' working inventory in the same way as owned stock. Including consignment transactions in a single median pulls the reported reading below the level that reflects owned-inventory turnover. The owned-only reading of 63 days for all-Rolex Q2 2026 is the cleaner "in-inventory market signal"; the all-stock reading of 52 days is the metric with comparability against prior-year Q2 pooled data, where no consignment flag was present.
Not because the Datejust family transacted less — the family retained the top within-Rolex rank at pooled resolution with 106 transactions across the quarter. Rather, because Datejust transactions at BQ Watches are spread across a very wide set of specific references (a mix of 36mm and 41mm case sizes, steel and two-tone configurations, dial variants across multiple decades of production). At monthly resolution, no single Datejust reference reliably clears the ten-observation threshold. At Q1 pooled resolution, three Datejust references did clear (126334, 126300 and vintage 16233); at Q2 pooled resolution, the Datejust reference-level distribution was more thinly spread and no individual reference reached the threshold. The Datejust family remains the top-traded Rolex family; it is simply that no single Datejust reference dominates within the family.
The GMT-Master index reading of 99 in Q2 2026 sits alongside a Q1 2026 reading also at 99, against a Q1 2024 baseline of 100. Both Q2 2024 (87) and Q2 2025 (84) had shown material sub-baseline readings — a seasonal Q2 dip pattern the family had recorded for two consecutive years. The Q2 2026 reading essentially eliminates that Q2 seasonal dip, suggesting that the underlying GMT-Master demand has strengthened enough through the first half of 2026 to offset the seasonal effect. As Spencer notes, the emergence of the Rolex GMT-Master 126710GRNR "Sprite" in the top-four reference list for the first time is the market-level observation that pairs with this index-level finding.
The Q3 2026 quarterly edition will follow the same structure and will extend the Transaction Price Index with a fourth Q3 data point (with Q3 2024 and Q3 2025 intermediate readings). Where Q3 2026 also produces materially new findings — for example, if the Rolex Daytona index stabilisation extends to a fourth consecutive quarter, or if generative-AI-attributed customer discovery moves off zero, or if the Rolex Sea-Dweller returns to threshold — those will be surfaced as new headline findings rather than slotted into the existing structure. The inaugural annual edition covering full-year 2026 will publish in February 2027.
The monthly editions are point-in-time snapshots, published with a one-month lag. The quarterly edition pools the three months in the calendar quarter to support reference-level analysis, the Transaction Price Index, the stratified stock-route Liquidity Report, and family-level analysis at deeper resolution than monthly samples can statistically support. Both are canonical: the monthly editions remain the source of record for their respective months (with the methodology in place at the time of publication), and the quarterly is the source of record for cross-month structural findings.
Series editor: Simon Evans, CTO. Market commentary: Spencer Dryer, Managing Director. BQ Watches.
For the full methodology, glossary and standing FAQ, see the canonical methodology page.
From the buying desk: Spencer Dryer on Q2 2026
The following editorial commentary is contributed by Spencer Dryer, Managing Director, BQ Watches, who oversees buying and selling and provides the watch-market context that accompanies the index data.
The single most important finding in this quarter's index is the Rolex Daytona. Three consecutive quarterly readings at 74-75 is the moment we can begin to say with confidence that the multi-year Daytona correction has ended. From the buying desk, the market feel matches the data — the Daytona pieces that transacted through April, May and June this year did so at prices that have been broadly steady for nine to twelve months. We are not seeing distressed sellers. We are seeing a market that has re-set at a level roughly a quarter below the 2024 peak and is now trading at that level with more or less consistent depth. For any owner of a ceramic Daytona who has been waiting for the market to decide whether it wants to fall further or hold, the answer emerging from three quarters of data is that it wants to hold.
The introduction of the stratified stock-route days-to-sell dimension in this edition is a piece of methodological transparency I am glad we have delivered. The owned-only reading — 63 days at all-Rolex level for Q2 2026 — is the number I would encourage anyone reading the index for market signal to hold in mind. That is what BQ Watches' owned inventory has actually turned at across the second quarter, on a like-for-like basis. The all-stock reading of 52 days is the correct number for the historical comparison against Q2 2025 and Q2 2024, but it is compositionally influenced by consignment stock that does not sit in inventory in the same way as owned stock. Both numbers are correctly computed under the methodology; readers should understand which one to use for which question.
The reference-level rotation between Q1 and Q2 is also worth flagging. The GMT-Master 126710GRNR "Sprite" appearing in the top four for the first time is a genuine market observation. The green-ceramic Rolex GMT has been building momentum through the first half of 2026 and Q2 is when the data caught up with what the buying desk had been seeing across February and March. The Datejust references falling out of the top list is not a Datejust story — the Datejust is still the top-ranked family and has held its index at 122 — but a reflection of how thinly Datejust transactions spread across a very wide reference set at BQ Watches. When the Datejust is at 25-30% of Rolex sales, but distributed across twenty or thirty specific references at monthly resolution, no single Datejust reference reliably clears the threshold at pooled level.
Looking forward into Q3 2026, three things I am watching. Whether the Daytona holds at ~75 for a fourth consecutive quarter — if it does, the "correction has ended" framing hardens into a confirmed pattern rather than a leading indicator. Whether the Rolex Sea-Dweller returns to Q3 pooled threshold; the family has been genuinely quiet at BQ Watches through 2025 and 2026 and its absence from the Liquidity Report reflects real quiet rather than a data artefact. And whether generative-AI-attributed customer discovery — which recorded zero customer-side attribution across May and June — recovers in Q3 or whether the multi-month pattern signals that AI search referrals to the pre-owned watch market have plateaued at a level below what my Q1 commentary anticipated. On that last point, the Q1 commentary forecast of "measurable share by the next quarterly" has not materialised and I would encourage readers to treat that forecast as unresolved rather than confirmed.