Price Creep

The gradual and steady increase in the valuation or market price of an asset. Price creep refers to a situation in which either an individual or a group of individuals gradually lessen its reservations about paying higher prices for a given asset.

Everyday life provides commonplace examples of price creep in action. Rates charged at movie theaters or for a casual dinner out at a restaurant can be subject to price creep, especially in high-profile urban areas. Over time, customers become accustomed to paying higher prices for the good or service in question; as a result, prices at most business tend to keep rising year after year, in excess of the rate of inflation.

In the financial markets, price creep can be seen where investors gradually give greater valuation to a financial security. For example, at first, an investor may deem a given stock to be worth $10 per share. But after following the company for a while and watching the stock's price trend upward, the investor may eventually relent and decide that $15 per share is a fair price for the stock, even though that person initially deemed $10 to be a fair market value.