Prediction season
Five questions to ask about Rolex every April, starting with 2026
Quick warning before you start: this is what I would call a ‘low-substance’ SDC post. I had some time to kill and I decided to delve into this silly annual ritual of predictions. I already have a ‘redemption’ post in the works which I’ll share later this week - so if you’re short on time, skip this!
We’re in peak prediction season again, which means the watch internet is running its annual clickbait routine. Monochrome has been doing it since 2014 (the full list is there in the intro to their article FYI). Fratello have done a written post and a whole podcast episode on it. Gear Patrol has a top five (including a smaller TYM!). Bob’s Watches, WatchGuys, Time 4 Diamonds, Chrono Hunter, Wristler, Beckertime, DMARGE and WatchPro have all filed their submissions. Everest has a post walking through the RolexForums threads, which themselves run to hundreds of posts. SJX did a wishlist, which has no Rolex models but the same exercise nonetheless. Oh, and then there’s YouTube, which probably has hundreds of thumbnails with a bloke pointing at a photoshopped Coke GMT.
I say all of this somewhat affectionately, because I am ashamed to admit I do read/watch a lot of this ‘prediction content’ every year and judge me if you must, but I kinda enjoy them! Having said that, if you consume enough of this coverage, it tends to converge on a similar shortlist, which is what you’d expect. This year the main claims are a Milgauss revival, Coke GMT, some new Land-Dweller dials, an anniversary Day-Date with a stone dial, a 1908 with a complication, and a titanium Explorer. You may find the odd outlier asking for a 37mm Submariner or a Yacht-Master II comeback (both of which Beckertime admits they’ve predicted for several years running, to no avail).
While the exact colours or variations might differ across pundits, what you will notice is that most predictions tend to evolve using the same logic - pick the anniversaries, you read a few patents, look at the mockups everyone else has already rendered, and then tidy up to make your own predictions. That’s all fine, but it only really tells you how prediction season works, and what it doesn’t do is address how Rolex works.
So this year, I’d like to propose five questions that you can ask in any given year to see what falls out… and I will also share my own Rolex predictions for 2026.
Estimated reading time: ~10 minutes
Where’s the gap?
This is a throwback to something Thierry Stern once said... paraphrased roughly from an interview I remember reading some time ago, his point was that if the secondary market sits regularly above retail, it’s likely that the brand has made a mistake with pricing. Having a gap that endures over time, is essentially economic value which the brand is handing to ADs, flippers, and grey dealers for free; no rational profit-maximising business wants to do that forever.
So the first and most powerful question in any given year is where has Rolex been leaving money on the table for a long time, and how might they claw it back without looking like they’re panicking or are greedy? The longer the gap has been there, the more pressure might be building, and the bigger the gap, the bigger the potential ‘fix’.
What does the new movement need to justify?
I don’t think Rolex designs watches and then decides to find movements for them; I reckon it’s the opposite. Rolex develops movements and other technology on multi-year timelines and then, if necessary, develops a case to put it in - either in an existing model or a new product line entirely. When a new calibre is ready, it creates its own kind of gravitational pull on the catalogue, because the brand needs to amortise the R&D across references, figure out what engineering story to tell in the press, and then migrate the technology across the catalogue over time.
The Calibre 7135 with the new Dynapulse escapement is that gravitational pull right now. Any 2026 prediction that ignores where the 7135 might go is missing a key variable.
What has Tudor done recently?
Coronet magazine often says that Rolex uses Tudor for ‘trial runs’ - RLX titanium only showed up on the Yacht-Master after Tudor had conducted about a decade of wear-and-tear testing on the Pelagos. They are perhaps doing the same with METAS certification as well. If Tudor has recently done something (a Ranger with a light dial, a chrono on a Jubilee, a new bracelet design) then it’s safe to say that thing is a candidate for a Rolex-grade version a few years later.
What’s gathering dust at ADs?
Availability at retail is not a compliment in the world of Rolex, which means any Rolex sitting in the display case lacks enough demand and the brand has a problem on its hands. The Explorer II is an obvious example because it is one of the easier sports Rolexes to walk out of a boutique with at list price. A model in that position is a candidate for either a reboot or a retirement. Conversely, a model you simply cannot buy without first buying three things you don’t want, is a model where the gap in question 1 is probably huge.
What does the price list imply?
If Rolex applies a 1% price hike to the Sky-Dweller in a year when other gold models are up 4-6%, that is useful data because price lists are downstream of product decisions. Brands wouldn’t freeze pricing on a model they’re about to relaunch, because they want the old list price to look cheap against the new one. Brands tend to freeze pricing on a model they’re about to discontinue or slowly wind down, because they don’t want the last batch sitting on shelves above a headline number that’s already been marked down. This means the most recent price list is kind of a cheat sheet, but as far as I can tell, most prediction essays don’t even address it.
2026 predictions
Now for the fun bit... These are my predictions and to be clear, I am in the dark like everyone else. You’re welcome to chime in with your own, or to tell me why I am wrong; in fact, please do!
The biggest question is the first one, and the answer is obvious; the steel Daytona is the worst mispricing in the Rolex catalogue. The 126500LN retails at around $15k, and I don’t need to tell you what it trades at on the grey market. The premium has been persistent, enormous, and always captured by the AD network and the grey market; this has been true for years - but that was before Rolex came up with CPO.
This is the watch that powers the whole pre-purchase extortion machine. Meanwhile, gold is up roughly 65% in a year, precious metal retail prices have been hiked 8-9%, and the steel sports models have been held to 5-6% increases to preserve their aspirational positioning (see here for more). All this suggests that the gap between the steel Daytona’s sticker price and its clearing price has widened.
My bet is that Rolex will do something about it this year. A straight price hike on the existing reference would look like panic, because doubling the list price of a watch you already sell draws attention to the ‘mistake’. A replacement that looks like an upgrade, on the other hand, can maybe justify a step-change in retail price without admitting anything.
There are plenty of ways for Rolex to dress this up. A precious-metal or two-tone construction is one. A display caseback (already road-tested on the Le Mans Daytona and the 1908) is another. Or it could be something else like a new bracelet treatment, or a platinum element on the bezel. Or perhaps some combination of all of these. A new dial layout is optional, and probably unlikely, because it doesn't add the kind of perceived value that justifies a price hike.
Anyway, the point of this ‘upscaling’ of the steel Daytona would be some kind of pretext to ‘re-anchor’ a steel chrono at something closer to twice its current retail price (or even more, given this is Rolex we’re talking about).
Next, what does the 7135 want to justify? Well, this is where most of the internet ends up predicting a Milgauss revival, because Dynapulse is inherently anti-magnetic and you could theoretically delete the Faraday cage and make a much thinner Milgauss. Monochrome has gone as far as mocking it up as a Cal. 7130 - derived from the Land Dweller. It’s a clean technical story, and I can see why anyone might be tempted to believe it… I just don’t.
The Milgauss was discontinued because its USP had been absorbed into the rest of the catalogue via the updated calibres; bringing it back to show off a feature that now exists in basically any other Rolex, kinda dilutes the point! Plus, Rolex skipped the GMT-Master’s 70th birthday recently, so “it’s an anniversary“ is not really a relevant constraint which Rolex really doesn’t mind glossing over. So yeah, the Milgauss is plausible, but I think it’s not probable.
The next thing to consider is Tudor’s activities; and this mostly points at a cleaner Land-Dweller dial layout (Tudor has been moving toward simpler, more legible dials in the Black Bay line) and possibly a white-dial Explorer (courtesy of the light-dial Ranger) - but I think it’s too soon for that as well. Look, all these are low-cost design moves so for 2026, this doesn’t help much.
Then we move on to what’s gathering dust, and I think this points at the Explorer II. I’d put a 41mm Explorer II reboot at decent odds; if they did this, it would be a restoration-of-desirability move and not a mispricing fix - but it would be a response to observable data, which of course, I do not have in black and white. I also think it might be too much change for one year, so this is something they could easily delay to next year.
Finally, the price list. Here, I suppose the Day-Date feels like the most likely candidate for the stone-dial anniversary release that everyone else is predicting. Fine, that may even happen, but it’s not where I think the more interesting possibility lies.
The more interesting thing for me, is that the Oyster Case turns 100 in 2026. The more fitting way to celebrate this is to use a model that wears the case in its purest, most unadorned form. That’s the Oyster Perpetual, surely? My guess, instead of a special Day-Date, is a celebratory OP in gold or Everose with a stone or meteorite dial. It’ll probably be a small-run or specially allocated piece like a Le Mans, because Rolex tends to mark this kind of milestone with something that feels scarce by design. Or maybe it’ll be readily available for a while, like the Kermit Submariner… either is possible.
Stuff I’m ignoring
Coke GMT - If you run the Coke through the five questions it doesn’t really earn a vote for me. There’s no obvious gap to close, because the GMT-Master II already extracts plenty of pricing power across its existing colour options (Pepsi, Batman, Sprite, Root Beer, and Bruce Wayne). It doesn’t justify a new movement, and Tudor hasn’t done anything that points to it. There’s also nothing gathering dust in the GMT line. And as far as I can tell, the price list isn’t saying much about it either. So really, adding a new red-black option will just overcrowd a section of the catalogue that’s already over-stocked. And yeah, the Pepsi may well be on its way out, but a like-for-like replacement isn’t the only way to handle that. This one is a pundit favourite, but I think it’s not happening.
Yacht-Master II - this one’s effectively confirmed already, and it isn’t going to surprise anyone or move the needle. I even saw some leaked images which may have been AI so I won’t add them here.
1908 complications - I think the 1908 will get complications eventually, and I can see the strategic logic of attacking haute horlogerie from a Rolex-grade industrial base. I just don’t see why 2026 is the correct year to do it. The collection is still finding its voice, and the HH segment is having a nasty time as of late... maybe in a couple of years we will see this happen.
Land-Dweller Titanium - Plausible, but a bit early; year-two collections tend to get new dial colours, not new materials.
On reflection, what is clear to me is that in any given year, one or two of these questions will probably dominate, and the other three will be supporting evidence as required. For 2026, the “gap” question is doing almost all the work.
Besides, all of this is probably wrong... we all know Rolex has a long track record of ignoring logic in favour of patience, and there are of course other ways to reshape Daytona pricing that don’t involve a new reference… tightening allocations, leaning harder on CPO, letting the grey market absorb a little more inventory without clamping down. But whether I’m right or wrong about 2026 - next year, when the same cycle runs again with a different list of anniversaries, I think the same five questions will still apply.
If the new steel Daytona and gold OP don’t happen next week, I’ll happily eat my mistakes in public. And then I’ll update this approach, because that’s how this sh1t is supposed to work 🤣.