In the first week of April, the value of fine wine available on Liv-ex reached £50million for the first time as the wholesale trade moved online.
With many traders now working remotely and many traditional channels like shops, restaurants and hotels closed due to coronavirus, Liv-ex has seen increased activity on its platform. The number of active markets – wines (LWIN11) with either a bid or an offer– topped 15,500 as the choice on offer continued to expand.
The number of trades and cases traded also reached record levels in March as the number of automated transactions (those matched via API) exceeded 40% of the total in recent weeks.
After an initial sharp fall in bidding activity, there are tentative signs of buyers returning to the market to take advantage of lower prices (as measured by the Liv-ex 100 and the Liv-ex 1000 indices) and a favourable GBP exchange rate.