COLORED DIAMOND PRICES

NO REASON TO FEEL BLUE ABOUT FANCY BLUE COLOR PRICES

Fancy blue colored diamonds strongly outperformed all other diamond price categories during the second quarter of 2017, according to the latest report issued by the New York-headquartered Fancy Color Research Foundation (FCRF).

FCRF data indicated that, while registering a moderate 0.8 percent rise between the first and second quarter of this year, fancy blue colored diamond prices were on average 5.5 percent higher than where they stood during the second quarter of 2016.

“The past year has been a challenging one for diamond prices in general,” commented Oded Meirov, Director of the Fancy Color Department at MID House of Diamonds, “for a variety of reasons, some of which were unrelated to the diamond business or even the world economy in general, such as the demonitization policy of the Indian government.  That is likely to change over the coming 12 months, with the consumer markets in the United States still relatively firm and a notable recovery of the markets in China.”

“Despite the difficulties, Fancy Colored Diamonds have shown themselves once again to be the most resilient products in the diamond category, with demand consistently strong, and even increasing robustly in certain areas, such as we have seen with blue diamonds,” Meirov continued. “This was demonstrated during the auctions at the beginning of summer, and will I expect it to continue to be the case as we move toward the holiday season at the end of the year.”

Within the Fancy Blue color category, the best performing sub-categories, both on a quarter-on-quarter and a year-on-year basis, were 10-carat fancy intense blue, 5-carat fancy vivid blue and 8-carat fancy intense blue. Between the first quarter and the second quarter 2017 their average prices per carat respectively appreciated by 2.5 percent, 2.4 percent and 2.3 percent, and between the second quarter of 2016 and the second quarter of 2017 they respectively rose by 13.1 percent, 11.5 percent and 11.4 percent.

In contrast, the average price per carat for all Fancy Colored Diamonds dipped by a moderate 0.3 percent between the first and second quarters of this years, although it was unchanged over a 12-month period. The average price per carat of Fancy Pink colors was down 0.5 percent between the first and second quarter of 2017, and 0.4 percent down year-on-year. The average price per carat of fancy yellow color decreased by 0.8 percent between the first and second quarter of this year, and by 2.5 percent when compared to where they stood during the second quarter of 2016.

Still, Fancy Colored Diamonds performed better price wise than most white or colorless diamonds. The carefully watched RapNet Diamond Index showed that the price for  a 1-carat, GIA-graded diamonds was down on average by 0.7 percent during July, 3.2 percent since the beginning of the year and 7.1 percent from July 2016.