Shares in luxury goods companies take a hit – will they recover?

Luxury goods companies have run into trouble, and the odds of a rapid recovery have receded. What next?

Louis Vuitton Bond Street In London
(Image credit: Mike Kemp / Contributor)

Shares in luxury goods companies have slumped after LVMH, which owns Moët & Chandon and Dior, reported an unexpectedly steep decline in third-quarter sales, says Joanna Partridge in The Guardian. Revenue in the “bellwether” fashion and leather goods division fell by 5%, which LVMH blamed on an “uncertain economic and geopolitical environment”, especially in Asia. The news unsettled investors in Hermès, Burberry and LVMH’s smaller rival Kering (the owner of Gucci).

Chinese shoppers have cut back amid the ongoing real-estate crisis, wiping “the equivalent of $60,000 off the net worth of Chinese households”, says Carol Ryan in The Wall Street Journal. This is bad news, as China has been a key growth driver for luxury over the past two decades, with the country now accounting for a third of global luxury sales, compared with just 1% in 2000. While there are still hopes that the Chinese government’s stimulus plans will boost the economy, details about the size of any stimulus remain “scant”, and it will bolster sales of consumers’ staples rather than high-end products.

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Dr Matthew Partridge
Shares editor, MoneyWeek

Matthew graduated from the University of Durham in 2004; he then gained an MSc, followed by a PhD at the London School of Economics.

He has previously written for a wide range of publications, including the Guardian and the Economist, and also helped to run a newsletter on terrorism. He has spent time at Lehman Brothers, Citigroup and the consultancy Lombard Street Research.

Matthew is the author of Superinvestors: Lessons from the greatest investors in history, published by Harriman House, which has been translated into several languages. His second book, Investing Explained: The Accessible Guide to Building an Investment Portfolio, is published by Kogan Page.

As senior writer, he writes the shares and politics & economics pages, as well as weekly Blowing It and Great Frauds in History columns He also writes a fortnightly reviews page and trading tips, as well as regular cover stories and multi-page investment focus features.

Follow Matthew on Twitter: @DrMatthewPartri