The Habanos Index — 103.2

The basket is every Cuban vitola on the Markets board — 52 at present, from the Cohiba Espléndidos to the Montecristo No. 4 — each weighted equally. A vitola enters the day's reading when at least one tracked retailer has it in stock at a price our scraper read that day.

The move for each vitola on each day is the change in the same retailer's in-stock price for the same box since the previous reading, averaged (geometrically) across every retailer that priced it on both days. A retailer selling out, a new retailer appearing, or a scrape that failed contributes nothing: only a price that actually changed moves the line. Prices are in euros at our reference rate, per cigar.

The index is 100 on the base day — the first day with readings for at least half the basket. Each vitola's level chains forward from 100 by its daily moves; the index is the equal-weighted mean of those levels across vitolas with a reading. Days with fewer than half the basket are skipped rather than estimated. Brand indices use the same method on that brand's vitolas.

What it is not. It is not Habanos S.A.'s list price, not a survey of every retailer in Europe, and not what any one buyer pays after duty. It is a daily measure of how the prices European retailers actually charge for each cigar are moving, from the 23 retailers we read. Until 17 September 2026 the index tracked the cheapest in-stock price instead, which jumped whenever the cheapest retailer sold out; the method was changed for that reason and the series recomputed.

The data are free to reuse with attribution (CC BY 4.0). Write to the desk for the daily series.