How Ferrari's brand strategy makes its stock more valuable than its cars

The world's most famous prancing horse has a dirty little secret: its shares have been a better bet than gold and its own classic cars.

Ferrari shares have absolutely monstered gold over the past 10 years. Its stock has raced ahead of gold, rising about 640 per cent since its 2015 IPO against 370 per cent for gold.

So, as an alternative investment gold is the sensible friend who walks you home at 10pm; a blue-chip Ferrari is the charismatic disaster you run away to Monaco with. Ferrari shares are the WhatsApp message you get later saying "By the way, I've already paid for the hotel".

One hedges inflation, one hedges your midlife crisis, and the other hedges against the terrifying possibility that you might die having only ever owned ETFs.

RACE: It's not subtle, just accurate

Bottom line: Over the past decade, "RACE" has been less a stock ticker and more a performance review, while gold – traditionally the drama queen of safe havens – has had to watch an Italian sports car company beat it at its own wealth preservation game. (PS: Not a metaphor: Ferrari shares literally trade as RACE.)

Old Ferraris: the original crypto

Not that classic steel and aluminium Fezzers have done too badly. The 10 most expensive cars ever sold at auction (using inflation-adjusted Australian dollars) are dominated by Ferraris with Merc and Aston Martin getting a slight look in. In general, the value of best-in-show classic Ferraris have risen about 10 per cent a year.

Auction porn for grown-ups

Here are the top-10 sales.

1. 1955 Mercedes Benz 300 SLR "Uhlenhaut Coupé" – $230m 2. 1955 Mercedes W196 R "Stromlinienwagen" Formula 1 car – $84m 3. 1962 Ferrari 330 LM / 250 GTO – $80m 4. 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO (Monterey sale) – $87m 5. 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO (Quail Lodge sale) – $75m 6. 1956 Ferrari 290 MM – $54m 7. 1967 Ferrari 275 GTB/4 NART Spider – $56m 8. 2025 Ferrari Daytona SP3 "Tailor Made" – $40m 9. 1964 Ferrari 275 GTB/C Speciale – $53m 10. 1963 Aston Martin DP215 – $39m

Is this Ferrari's year?

Last week Chuck Marc Herve Perceval Leclerc, 28 of Monaco, set the fastest time for Ferrari on the opening day of Formula 1 pre-season testing in Bahrain. Twenty readers, cop this transition: This strong initial performance comes alongside Ferrari's 2025 financial results released this week showing a 12 per cent increase in operating profit to $3.55m for the full year 2025. Here's the fun bit: Ferrari drops a quarterly result that misses on both EPS and revenue, and the market responds by sending the stock north like it's just heard the word AI. On the headline numbers you've got EPS of $2.14 vs. $2.48 expected and revenue of $3bn against $3.45bn expected — yet the shares popped about 8.8 per cent pre-market to roughly $5.10.

Wall Street hears 'Ferrari' and forgives everything

That's not investors being drunk on Italian exhaust noise. It's investors basically saying: "We can live with a quarter that's a bit lumpy if the machine underneath still prints margins and scarcity." Fezzer CEO and physicist (inventor of the three-axis accelerometer) Benedetto Vigna, 56, and his team are still running the Ferrari playbook: keep volumes tight, keep the mix rich, and let the brand do the heavy lifting.

The Ferrari playbook is fewer cars, more money

Zoom out and the full-year story is far more "Ferrari" than the quarter suggests. They're talking about $12.0bn in 2025 revenue (+8 per cent), EBIT north of about $3.5bn, an EBITDA margin of 38.8 per cent, EBIT margin of 29.5 per cent, and industrial cashflow of more than about $2.5bn. Translation: the business is still an outrageously efficient luxury cash (V12) engine. A big chunk of that efficiency is mix and monetisation. They're openly saying personalisation is about 20 per cent of cars and parts revenue – and that's the modern Ferrari cheat code. Sell the dream, then charge handsomely for the dream in carbon, paint, trim and bespoke everything. And crucially, don't build so many cars that last year's dream becomes this year's Camry.

No one gets forced into the electric corner

Ferrari's EV line is the opposite of the awkward "please clap" vibe you get from some legacy brands. They're basically telling analysts "we will not force EVs on to customers. If people want it, they'll buy it; if they don't, Ferrari won't play the desperate-dealer game of bundling it as an entry ticket to something cooler". That's pure luxury discipline and it's also a subtle dig at the wider industry's panic selling.

Kissimmee turns into a Ferraristocracy

The Mecum Kissimmee auction used to be where you went to buy a Chevelle and a corn dog; in 2026 it turned into a Ferraristocracy with a live audience. Under the fluorescent lights of Central Florida, a white 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO quietly changed hands for $53m, which is what happens when someone decides they'd rather own lap times from 1963 than a perfectly respectable chain of supermarkets.

Therapy is expensive. Fezzer therapy is more expensive.

The real circus, though, was the late Phil Bachman's yellow tinted collection, a 46-car reminder that some people work through midlife crises with therapy and others with multiple Enzos. His Giallo Enzo at nearly $26m, plus record money for F40, F50, LaFerrari and friends, turned "Super Saturday" into a sort of Maranello-themed IPO day, except the underwriters were guys in polo shirts and white sneakers.

Lesson for rich parents: don't buy your 19-year-old a 450kw car

Kimi Antonelli, 19, had a prang near his home of Serravalle in San Marino on the way out to the Formula 1 test week. It was a single-car incident, guardrail, no other vehicles involved. Mercedes says he called police, the car was damaged, and he walked away completely fine.

The car in question wasn't exactly a humble hatchback, either. He was driving a Mercedes AMG GT 63 PRO 4MATIC+ "Motorsport Collectors' Edition" ($550,000 here not much more to pay) – a genuinely scarce, 200-car special with handpainted bodywork in a Petronas-style livery, plus aero tweaks and extra cooling, and a 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8. Not the sort of thing you want introducing itself to armco.

Tonight's main event isn't Bahrain

In much more important news, the Kensi, the home of F1, Coopers on tap and home to tonight's treat-your-special-someone to an unforgettable Valentine's Day dinner, is treating itself to huge renos. Let's cross to our reporter on the spot, Michael McMichael. "Thanks John. It's as exciting here as a Bunnings snag with no onions. Pete and Jenny Hurley have thrown the moths out of their wallets and gone for the Tate Modern look.

"Not being too modest but I can exclusively report that the new Sultan Room will feature large original nude oil paintings of the royal family (except two) by a well-known local artiste. And Johnny you and the other 19 readers heard it here first: King Chuck and Queen Camillia will be sailing out here to do the official opening in the nude. What a night that will be Johnny."