SDC Weekly 91; Top 3 from Watches & Wonders 2025: Vacheron Constantin's Solaria, Grand Seiko's UFA & Rolex's Dynapulse
Morgan Stanley on Swiss Icons; Glashütte Original’s Trademark Rejection; Joshua Ganjei, European Watch Company; Losing Faith in America; Update on my dad visit
🚨 We’re back!
It isn’t news that Donnie T wiped out $2 trillion from the US stock market with his tariffs (I wrote about that already) - but what happened after that can only be described as lunacy. The market received what might be the most extraordinary example of presidential mood swings anyone has ever seen.
On Wednesday 9th April, after watching Treasury yields fly up and Jamie Dimon predicting a recession, Trump abruptly paused tariffs for most countries mere hours after implementing them (and at the same time, increased tariffs charged on Chinese imports (China hit back, of course)1.
Despite public posturing, Trump admitted he was glued to his screen watching yields go haywire. His explanation for the reversal - people had gotten “a bit yippy” - might be the understatement of the decade.
The market responded with a euphoric sugar rush - the S&P rocketed nearly 10%, the Dow soared 8%, and the Nasdaq jumped 12%. The latest news is that the tariff reversal has, rather unsurprisingly, sparked insider trading allegations.
The most incredible aspect here wasn’t even the wild market swings; essentially, the world has now collectively experienced a profound loss of confidence in American financial stability. For perhaps the first time in living memory, both Treasury bonds and the US dollar tanked simultaneously during a crisis - this is an absolutely extraordinary development, because what usually happens during a crisis, is these assets rally because investors choose them when they seek safety.
Since Tuesday, the dollar index has dropped 3.4%, and since mid-January, it has fallen 9.2% - numbers that currency traders would describe as seismic. Meanwhile, the 10-year Treasury yield went up from below 4% to over 4.57%.
So yeah, the global investor community is abandoning the “America = safe-haven” playbook. Deutsche Bank strategist George Saravelos captured this sentiment in his note to clients, saying that markets are “reassessing the US dollar’s structural appeal as the world’s reserve currency.”
The root causes are obvious: erratic leadership, deficits that would make a degenerate gambler blush, and rapidly deteriorating international relationships. In other words, America looks less like a rock of stability and more like a meme stock; except, it’s a country! Is it not a meme when you can see £1.5 trillion added to the Magnificent Seven in a single trading session, immediately followed by a thousand-point drop the next day? When a president’s social media functions as de facto monetary and trade policy, I think it’s safe to conclude we are no longer operating in a rational market.
What does this mean?
I’d say options trading will explode, as SDC subscriber Mr. Berns will confirm… fortunes will be made and lost based on presidential tweets instead of economic fundamentals.
I also think young investors will now pour in to the market, attracted like flies to piles of sh1t… chasing volatility rather than value… treating the world’s largest economy like a casino.
Anyway, sorry for the rant… let’s talk watches, shall we? Morgan Stanley’s Q1 2025 Swiss Watch Market Report dropped this morning, so you can expect the usual summary sometime this week; it’d be too long to fit in a weekly newsletter anyway!
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Glashütte Original’s Trademark Rejection
A recent court case involving Glashütter Uhrenbetrieb GmbH brings to light an interesting challenge at the intersection of traditional watchmaking and the digital world. On 11 December 2024, the First Chamber of the General Court rejected Glashütte’s attempt to register their “Glashütte ORIGINAL” figurative trademark for virtual watch products and services.
The Case in Brief
Glashütte applied to register their “Glashütte ORIGINAL” mark for downloadable virtual goods in July 2022, which included digital watches, chronographs, and accessories for use in online environments. The EU Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) rejected the application, citing a lack of distinctiveness, and Glashütte’s appeal was ultimately dismissed.
Why This Matters
This really does raise some alarming questions about how (and whether!) traditional watch brands can and should protect their intellectual property in virtual environments. The court essentially said that if consumers associate Glashütte with high-quality traditional watchmaking (which they do), they’ll transfer that perception to virtual products as well. Therefore, the mark wouldn’t serve as a unique identifier of commercial origin, but rather as a promotional reference to the town’s watchmaking heritage!
Virtual Products, Real Perceptions
I find it interesting how the court reasoned that consumers would perceive virtual watch products essentially the same way they perceive physical ones. The court stated “the public pertinent perceives, in principle, virtual products and services in the same way it perceives the corresponding real products and services.”
What the fvck are they smoking?