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Classic-car market poised for strong 2026, says Hagerty CEO
A version of this article first appeared in CNBC’s Inside Wealth newsletter with Robert Frank, a weekly guide to the high-net-worth investor and consumer. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox.
The strength in the classic-car market is expected to continue in 2026 as a new generation of collectors revs up demand, said the CEO of Hagerty.
Auctions and online sales of collectible cars surged 10% in 2025 to $4.8 billion, according to Hagerty, the classic-car insurance company and collector platform. Hagerty CEO McKeel Hagerty said based on the sales pipeline and activity in the private classic-car market, demand appears strong for next year.
“We’ve seen a lot of momentum on the private side,” Hagerty told CNBC. “We’re seeing a lot of private transactions take place of very significant cars, of all kinds, of all ages. We’re looking forward to 2026.”
The biggest driver is a new generation of collectors. As baby boomers age out of the market and downsize, members of Generation X, millennials and Gen Zers are taking over and redefining the market. They’re more comfortable buying online, with online classic-car sales surging 12% this year to $2.5 billion, according to Hagerty.
Younger buyers also want younger cars. The 1950s and ’60s sports cars that have long dominated the classic-car market are being replaced by high-performance supercars of the ’90s and later. Ferrari F40s and F50s, Bugatti Veyrons and Chirons and McLaren F1s, along with Paganis and Koenigseggs are among the most sought-after prizes today.
Hagerty said that because many of today’s supercar makers are also increasing production, supply will remain strong.
“You think Ferrari, Porsche, all of them just seem to be setting record sales numbers every year,” he said. “That’s the future of what people will be buying, and they’ll be collecting and they’ll hang on to them. So we like that as the tail wind.”
The great wealth transfer will also shake up the industry, as a wave of older cars owned by baby boomers are passed down to the next generations. An estimated $100 trillion is expected to be inherited by spouses and families by 2048, according to Cerulli Associates. The amount includes real estate, collectibles and other hard assets.
“Some of that will be cars,” Hagerty said. “Those families will have to decide if they want to keep it, do they want to put it in a garage? Do they want to sell them? I think it’s really just beginning.”
McKeel Hagerty, CEO, Hagerty at the NYSE December 6, 2021.
Source: NYSE
For those looking for good investments in today’s classic-car market, Hagerty just published its Bull Market List. The annual ranking uses Hagerty data to find cars that are good value, fun to drive and likely to increase in price due to strong demand — or as Hagerty says, “sweet buys for the year ahead.”
The list includes the pricey 2004-2007 Porsche Carrera GT (typically over $1.5 million), the 1969-1972 Alfa Romeo GTV (typically $50,000 to $150,000) and the 1999-2005 Mazda MX-5 Miata (usually $9,000 to $26,000).
In the end, Hagerty said the classic-car market is ultimately powered by wealth creation. With stock markets poised for their third year of double-digit growth and interest rates falling, he said collectors have plenty of fuel to keep buying.
“They’re feeling pretty good about their personal balance sheets,” he said. “They log into their accounts and see their portfolio is doing OK. People, I think, are feeling that strength to be able to go out there and make those purchases.”
A top Amazon executive has said the US technology giant has blocked more than 1,800 job applications from suspected North Korean agents.
North Koreans tried to apply for remote working IT jobs using stolen or fake identities, Amazon’s chief security officer Stephen Schmidt said in a LinkedIn post.
“Their objective is typically straightforward: get hired, get paid, and funnel wages back to fund the regime’s weapons programs,” he said, adding that this trend is likely to be happening at scale across the industry, especially in the US.
Authorities in the US and South Korea have warned about Pyongyang’s operatives carrying out online scams.
Amazon has seen a nearly one-third increase in job applications from North Koreans in the past year, said Mr Schmidt in his post.
He said the operatives typically work with people managing “laptop farms” – referring to computers based in the US that are run remotely from outside of the country.
The firm used a combination of artificial intelligence (AI) tools and verification by its staff to screen job applications, he said.
The strategies used by such fraudsters have become more sophisticated, Mr Schmidt said.
Bad actors are hijacking dormant LinkedIn accounts using leaked credentials to gain verification. They target genuine software engineers to appear credible, he said, urging firms to report suspicious job applications to the authorities.
Mr Schmidt warned employers to look out for indicators of fraudulent North Korean job applications, including incorrectly formatted phone numbers and mismatched education histories.
In June, the US government said it had uncovered 29 “laptop farms” that were being operated illegally across the country by North Korean IT workers.
They used stolen or forged identities of Americans to help North Korean nationals get jobs in the US, said the Department of Justice (DOJ).
It also indicted US brokers who had helped secure jobs for the North Korean operatives.
In July, a woman from Arizona was sentenced to more than eight years in jail for running a laptop farm to help North Korean IT workers secure remote jobs at more than 300 US companies.
The DOJ said the scheme generated more than $17m (£12.6m) in illicit gains for her and Pyongyang.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a pill version of the weight-loss drug Wegovy, according to pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk.
It is the first pill of its kind to receive approval from the regulator, marking a new era for weight-loss drugs.
Wegovy’s Danish makers Novo Nordisk said the once-daily pill was a “convenient option” to the injectable and would provide the same weight loss as the shot. It comes after Wegovy was approved by the FDA specifically for weight loss.
Others like Ozempic, which has similar weight-loss effects, were primarily approved for the treatment of Type 2 diabetes.
The BBC has contacted the FDA for comment.
The Wegovy pill showed an average weight loss of 16.6% during Novo Nordisk’s trials, the firm said on Monday.
A third of around 1,300 participants experienced 20% or greater weight loss in the same trial, it added.
The pill is expected to be launched in the US in early January 2026.
“Patients will have a convenient, once-daily pill that can help them lose as much weight as the original Wegovy injection,” said Mike Doustdar, the firm’s chief executive.
The pill version of Wegovy could give Novo Nordisk’s sales a boost after a challenging year which saw its shares slide as it warned over its profits.
The company has faced intense competition in the weight-loss market from rival drugmakers like Eli Lilly.
Novo Nordisk’s shares rose by almost 10% in after-hours trade in New York after the announcement.
The logo of pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk is displayed in front of its offices in Bagsvaerd, on the outskirts of Copenhagen, Denmark, Nov. 24, 2025.
Tom Little | Reuters
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Monday approved the first-ever GLP-1 pill for obesity from Wegovy maker Novo Nordisk, a landmark decision that health experts say could open up treatment access to more patients.
Novo Nordisk said it expects to launch the pill in early 2026. The Danish drugmaker said starting in early January, the starting dose of 1.5 milligrams will be available in pharmacies and via select telehealth providers with savings offers for $149 per month.
That’s the same price that cash-paying patients can access the starting dose of the pill on President Donald Trump’s direct-to-consumer website, TrumpRx, under a deal Novo Nordisk struck with his administration last month. Trump’s site also launches in January.
Novo Nordisk did not say how much higher doses of the drug would cost, but said additional information on coverage and savings options for eligible patients will be available at that time as well.
Shares of Novo Nordisk gained roughly 9% in extended trading Monday.
The FDA’s approval also clears the pill for use to reduce the risk of major cardiovascular events, such as death, heart attack or stroke, in adults with obesity and established cardiovascular disease, according to Novo Nordisk. That’s consistent with the approval label of the company’s blockbuster weight loss drug Wegovy, which shares the same active ingredient, semaglutide.
The move gives Novo Nordisk a head start over chief rival Eli Lilly, which is currently the dominant player in the market and is racing to launch its own obesity pill. Pills are the next battleground for the two drugmakers, which established the booming GLP-1 space that some analysts say could be worth roughly $100 billion by the 2030s.
Wall Street thinks there’s plenty of room for pills in the market, with Goldman Sachs analyst saying in August that pills could capture a 24% share — or around $22 billion — of the 2030 global weight loss drug market.
“What we’ve learned through years of research is that having an oral option really kind of opens up, activates and motivates different segments to seek treatment,” Dave Moore, Novo Nordisk’s executive vice president of U.S. operations, told CNBC ahead of the approval. “To have that conversation with their doctor to see if this is something that might be right for them.”
“That’s what we’re excited about — to be able to give people an option and make sure we have access and ease of access like we have been doing with our injections,” he continued.
The approval is based on a phase three trial that followed more than 300 adults with obesity but not diabetes.
In that study, a 25-milligram dose of Novo Nordisk’s oral semaglutide helped patients lose up to 16.6% of their weight on average after 64 weeks, according to results from the trial presented at a medical conference in 2024. That weight loss was 13.6% when the company analyzed all patients regardless of whether they stopped the drug.
The pill appears to be slightly more effective than an experimental oral drug from Eli Lilly, which is still waiting for FDA approval.
But unlike Novo Nordisk’s pill, Eli Lilly’s treatment is not a peptide medication. That means it is absorbed more easily by the body and does not require dietary restrictions. People who take Novo Nordisk’s pill have to wait 30 minutes before eating or drinking each day.
Moore said the prices of the pill get costs closer to what some people are paying for unapproved, compounded versions of branded GLP-1s, some of which are still being illegally mass marketed and sold in the U.S.
Patients flocked to the cheaper copycats when Ozempic and Wegovy were in short supply over the last two years due to skyrocketing demand, or if they didn’t have insurance coverage for the costly treatments. During FDA-declared shortages, pharmacists can legally make compounded versions of brand-name medications. But the agency earlier this year determined that the shortage of semaglutide is over, barring the practice in most cases.
“It continues to be alarming and disturbing for us,” Moore told CNBC, referring to illegitimate ingredients that are imported into the U.S. illegally and used by some compounding pharmacies to create copycat versions of GLP-1s.
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