Survey Finds Family Offices Nearly Doubling Uncorrelated Asset Exposure

A 2026 survey of 290 global family offices found inflation was a leading concern as exposure to uncorrelated assets nearly doubled, while separate luxury indexes and auction sales pointed to different market conditions.

Jewelry and fine art were listed as examples of uncorrelated assets. The increase applies to uncorrelated assets broadly; it does not show that jewelry or fine art drove it or specify dollar allocations. It also does not establish that inflation concerns drove the change or that these holdings preserved purchasing power.

The broad luxury-collectibles index fell 0.4% in 2025, following declines across most categories in 2023 and 2024. Yet it gained 38.6% over the 10 years through 2025. The annual and decade-long readings show different results across those periods, while the broad index summarizes multiple collectibles rather than each asset individually.

Watch market measures rose over the year covered by the 2026 figures. The overall market measure gained 5.1%, while the Rolex measure rose 4.6% and the Patek Philippe measure rose 12.1%. Fine wine moved lower: its index fell 2.5% in 2025 and stood nearly 25% below its 2022 peak. These category-level readings do not describe the performance of a particular family's collection.

Fine-art sales across major auction houses increased 11% year over year in 2025. That figure measures combined sales value, not the return earned by an art owner. Gustav Klimt's Bildnis Elisabeth Lederer (Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer) sold for $236.4 million at Sotheby's in New York on Nov. 18, 2025. Six collectors took part in a 20-minute bidding battle for the painting; that single transaction does not show how other works changed in value.

Art can have value beyond resale. A 2009 economic model treated art as both an investment and a source of consumption and wealth signaling. The available figures do not provide a common inflation-adjusted return comparison after ownership and transaction costs, so they do not establish whether these holdings beat inflation.