The Indian market is in the headlines again. This time, because of news in the Indian press that a consortium of lenders to a large diamond firm decided to file an insolvency case against it. A few days later, more banking and lending-related news came out that cast a heavy shadow over the Indian diamond hub.
The last Empress Consort of the French, the wife of self-proclaimed Emperor Napoleon III, adopted a few habits of the French nobility. One of these was to acquire a personal travel trunk maker and packer. This fairly odd-seeming choice was not completely out of context, considering that today’s common place suitcase was not at all a typical item in most households in the 19th century. The man Empress Eugénie de Montijo chose for the task was designer Louis Vuitton.
August is generally a period of slow activity in the diamond industry. Traders, manufacturers and wholesalers in Belgium, Israel and the US were away on their summer holidays as were many industry members that are based in India. The exception to this is US retailers, as those operating in popular tourist destinations saw a rise in in-store consumer traffic, which then spurred limited trading activity, mostly among American and Indian suppliers.
The summer months are here and with them polished diamond activity has slowed down. Demand from the retail and jewelry manufacturing sectors is down, and wholesale trading has decreased, leading in turn to a decline in wholesale polished diamondprices. The Mercury Diamond Global Tracker™ (MDGT™) averaged 113.81 in July 2018, which is a 0.3% decline compared to June.
The June Mercury Diamond polished price report has shown that prices of most round diamond size categories declined compared to May. The two size ranges that did rise were 0.50- and 0.70-carats. All other size ranges declined.
