De Beers Raises Rough Prices

[mike04456]

De Beers Raises Rough Prices

 

[verticalhorizon]

How likely, or how soon, will we see the effects of this?

 

[Mara]

IMO the effects have already been seen.




If you look around some of the Pscope vendor inventory, those who carry in-house inventory, pickins are alot more slim than they were 6 months ago. It seems as though vendors are trying to keep costs down for themselves and therefore not having to pass on too much cost to the customer. More expensive rough means more expensive cut stones. I think also that there will be more of the 'sweet spot' carat weight diamonds sold, such as the 1ctw, 1.5ctw stones, because vendors can command alot more $$ for those, and if I were a cutter and had a choice between a stone that would yield me a 1.5c stone or a 1.40c stone, I would obviously buy and cut the biggest stone to make that $$ mark.




Should be interesting. Hope it doesn't stay this way for too long. Every few weeks I have been running new searches on the cut quality vendors list and while 2 months ago there was a plethora of certain size and types of stones, now there are only a handful.

 

[verticalhorizon]

That makes sense. I just started my (real informed) search this month and I thought that my searches had come up pretty bare.

I don't want to wait 6 more months to propose though and wait to see what happens with the market. Sad.

 

[hoorray]

I have seen some minor price increases lately on in-house stock. That said, I think you don't try to second guess this market. I wouldn't think you will see dramatic changes either way in a 6 month timeframe. Mara might be right that the selection will be thinner. If you are ready to buy now, you may as well start looking and buy when you find the right stone. Give yourself time to find it, and you should be fine. The ones that struggle are the ones that need something NOW.

 

[mike04456]

Mara is more or less correct. This is the latest in a series of price increases from last year, but retailers are really resisting them because they don't think the market can support it. As a result, the manufacturers have been eating the higher costs. However, many of them are stretched to the limit and have been refusing to sell their cut stones at the prices retailers are willing to pay. So there has been an ever-growing "overhang" of cut stones sitting in the manufacturers' vaults. There will be some kind of movement this year, but what it will be remains to be seen.

 

[Mara]

I love being more or less correct, LawBond!

 

[verticalhorizon]

I'm glad I'm focusing on the ring first before making plans so I'm not rushed into a purchase. But of course, I'd rather it be sooner than later. I'm jazzed to get hitched!