[kodah]

Companies that cater mostly to luxury clients

Anything energy related.

Geography also plays an important role. Places like the valley saw very little impact while the place I was living at in the South basically had it's software ecosystem gutted. It did bounce back within a year though, so just make sure you have enough funds to ride a recession out in the worst case.

[spenvo]

> Companies that cater mostly to luxury clients

Nah - look at what happened to the Boating industry in 2009. The values of jetskis, sailboats, etc took a major hit as demand dried up. Boats are considered luxury items

[neverartful]

I would think the important distinction would be luxury products that cater to the extremely wealthy (as opposed to luxury products bought by people that can barely afford it).

[stickfigure]

What kind of luxury products cater to only (or even primarily) the extremely wealthy? Superyachts, airplanes, maybe some exclusive villas/hotels, what else? Even supercars are bought by the merely "very" wealthy, who may be affected.

[bluetomcat]

For a watch analogy, consider Tissot vs Omega. The former is considered an "entry-level luxury" brand with many offerings around the $1000 mark, while the latter is a true luxury brand with most offerings in the range of tens of thousands of dollars. Pretty much any broke person can get a Tissot to appear well-off, if they want it hard enough.

For a car analogy, consider BMW vs Aston Martin. Many people in an unfavourable financial sitation can get a well-specced 3-series and appear well-off, while a $200k DB11 is well out of reach for most "pretenders".

[stickfigure]

Hmmmm... I'm not terribly familiar with watches, but a $200k car is well within the reach of most people with 7 or low-8 figure net worth. Those people aren't so wealthy that their spending habits are recession-proof.

What percentage of Aston Martin buyers are 7-figure buyers as opposed to 9-figure buyers? I'm wildly guessing it's a big percentage, since there just aren't as many 9-figure buyers? Do we have any way to know?

[neverartful]

I don't entirely know because I'm very far from being in that demographic. Despite that, I'm sure that there are some super expensive luxury home furnishings.

[kodah]

You have a valid point, I was thinking luxury retail.

[bdamm]

Why would luxury retail be a good harbor in a recession? Usually luxury spending goes down.

[kodah]

I don't think that's true. I worked for a luxury retailer right after 08/09 and I looked at their revenues. They were about even, if not moderately higher. I went to work for another shortly after that, and it was a similar story. Now, net sales may go down, but luxury retailers have a pretty wide latitude in what they sell their products for because they're often artificially controlling inventory (similar to the way Nintendo does). I think that's what really affects the bottom line.

[vilius]

Depends on the luxury level. At the very top the customer base consists of the most recession-proof people in the World. I assume they just carry on with their habits recession or not.

[achillesheels]

There is a significant population on Planet Earth that are "permahedged" from any material anxieties. Clearly, we are talking about annual consumption trends of $500K per individual, and not in the luxury yacht race. (They likely already have access to one if needed).

This is the market to cater to. The question is: with what truly novel good?

[throwaway4good]

No energy will do badly; go back to 2008 and see what happened to energy companies after oil had its 150 USD price spike.

[giantg2]

Don't utilities tend to do well (energy related)?

[lghh]

> Anything energy related.

The oil and gas industry would say otherwise.