Over the past three months, polished diamond prices have fallen despite rough prices remaining firm.
According to the RapNet Diamond index, the price of one-carat laboratory-graded diamonds fell 6.2 per cent during the second quarter. The price of 0.3-carat diamonds also declined 5.8 per cent during the quarter, 0.5-carat diamonds dropped 1.6 per cent and three-carat diamonds decreased 4.6 per cent.
When examined on an annual basis, declines appear to be even steeper—compared with the second quarter of last year, 0.3-carat diamond prices fell 25.8 per cent, 0.5-carat stones fell 17.5 per cent, one-carat stones fell 15.3 per cent, and three-carat diamonds fell 18.1 per cent.
Meanwhile, analyst Paul Zimnisky debuted a new rough diamond price index, which shows a marginal increase in the price of uncut diamonds in the last quarter, despite a year-to-year decrease. In the past three months, rough prices have increased 0.22 percent and in the last month, 0.07 per cent. According to this index, prices did decline some 3.39 per cent in the last six months and 9.43 per cent on an annual basis. CJ
