(IDEX Online) - The US has reportedly blocked $26m of payments made by Indian businesses attempting to buy rough diamonds from Russia.OFAC, the Office of Foreign Assets Control, is said to have instructed banks in recent months to halt the transfer of funds, mostly from UAE subsidiaries of Indian companies.Neither India nor the UAE has sanctioned rough diamonds from Russia. The US has, altho...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Lab growns are the biggest threat to Namibia's diamond industry, according to Namdia, the state-owned trading company.Lelly Usiku, executive market development, sales and brand says they are increasingly popular in China, the biggest retail market after the US.Lab growns are filling a gap left by Alrosa's reduced production, following its invasion of Ukraine, she said, ac...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Demand for larger diamonds - 3.0-cts and above - is strong, say traders at the IIJS Premiere (India International Jewellery Show), currently taking place in Mumbai, India.Ovals, emeralds, pears, marquise and other fancy shapes are also popular. Fancy prices have held up better than rounds - down 25 per cent drop since February, compared to 30 or 35 per cent for rounds.Organizers of...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Two men have been arrested after a bag containing $9.3m of jewelry was stolen from passengers checking in for an Emirates flight from Barcelona's El Prat airport.The stolen Hermes Birkin Bag contained a 47 carat diamond ring valued at $4.93m, a Chanel brooch ($822,000), diamond earrings ($548,000), a Bvlgari watch ($986,000) and $11,000 in cash.The bag belonged to a Russian co...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Direct flights between Surat and Dubai and Hong could begin as early as December.The Indian government has been under increasing pressure to open up the skies as the city opens its vast new bourse.Dinesh Navadia, a member of the Surat Diamond Bourse (SDB) committee, said a delegation had met civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia."He assured us that from December or in Januar...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Botswana's state diamond company is to introduce alternative sales channels, beyond auctions.It follows a new deal, agreed last month, under which the state-owned Okavango Diamond Company (ODC) will see its rough allocation double over a decade to 50 per cent."ODC auctions are too big and need to be optimized," ODC managing director Mmetla Masire told Reuters."We also need to...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Thirteen miners who were illegally digging for diamonds at Kleinzee, in South Africa's Northern Cape, have died after tunnels collapsed The so-called "zama zamas" were trapped underground as they tried to recover diamonds along the coastline where De Beers had an open cast mine from 1942 to 2009. There is speculation that recent heavy rains may have made the ground unstable. M...Read More
Index futures were higher this morning. S&P 500 futures were up 8 points at 8:35 AM EDT.Index futures were unchanged following release of July Non-farm Payrolls released at 8:30 AM EDT. Consensus calls for an increase of 184,000 versus a gain of 209,000 in June. Actual was an increase of 187,000. Consensus calls for the July Unemployment Rate to be unchanged from June at 3.6%. Actual was 3,5%....Read More
(IDEX Online) - Police were called to break up a brawl at the Diamond Exchange NYC on Monday (1 August).Blows were exchanged between traders' booths at the marketplace, which calls itself the World's Largest Jewelry Exchange, in Midtown Manhattan's Diamond District.Video of the incident appears to show several men slugging it out, one woman being hit, and one man losing his pants du...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Polished diamond prices suffered another hefty fall during July as geopolitical uncertainties continued to cast a dark shadow over the diamond market.The IDEX Polished Price Index has been losing an average of 1.8 per cent a month over the last year.During July it fell by 2.57 per cent, a slight improvement on June's 3.04 per cent drop, the worst since the current decline bega...Read More
(IDEX Online) - It's a single lab grown diamond, carved into 4.04 carat solid-faceted ring.Dutch Diamond Technologies created it, in collaboration with Belgian jewelry store Heursel, and it was evaluated by GIA, in New York.The lab described it as demonstrating "the fusion between cutting-edge technology and traditional craftsmanship".It was laser-cut from an 8.54 carat lab grown diamond plat...Read More
U.S. equity index futures were lower this morning. S&P 500 futures were down 18 points at 8:35 AM EDTIndex futures were unchanged following release of U.S. second quarter Non-farm Productivity at 8:30 AM EDT. Consensus was an increase of 1.1% versus a drop of 2.1% in the first quarter. Actual was an increase of 3.7%.Bank of England raised its discount rate by 0.25% to 5.25%.Qualcomm dropped $9...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Armed robbers yesterday (1 August) escaped with up to $16m of jewelry from a Piaget store, in the latest high-value raid on the Place Vendome, in Paris.Police are reported to be hunting two smartly-dressed men and a woman who held staff members at gunpoint in the lunchtime heist.It's the latest in a spate of raids in the area. Last month two armed men forced staff to open the...Read More
(IDEX Online) - US watch and jewelry sales fell back a little during June, down by 3.5 per cent according to the Department of Commerce.It follows a small sign of improvement the previous month, when, according to revised figures, sales fell by just 2.0 per cent. By comparison, March and April saw sales drop by 8.8 per cent and 6.4 per cent respectively.Consumers in the US remain he...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Has Rihanna started a new trend, with a $700,000 Jacob & Co diamond watch on a neck choker?It certainly provoked a reaction at the Louis Vuitton Fashion Show, in Paris, even if it ignored one very basic requirement for wearing a timepiece.The Barbadian singer, 35, was involved in the design, adapting the Brilliant Flying Tourbillon watch to be worn on a black calfskin choker, s...Read More
Equity index futures were lower this morning. S&P 500 futures were down 26 points at 8:30 AM EDT.Index futures moved lower overnight after Fitch downgraded the U.S. long term credit rating from AAA to AA+Advanced Micro Devices gained $4.97 to $122.57 after reporting higher than consensus quarterly results.Mosaic slipped $0.23 to $40.00 after reporting lower quarterly revenues and earnings. Ele...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Crypto boss Richard Heart has been accused of defrauding investors to buy The Enigma, the world's largest black natural color diamond - a 555.55-ct carbonado - for $4.3m.The SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) in Washington, USA, yesterday (31 August) charged Richard Heart (aka Richard Schueler) and his crypto companies Hex, PulseChain, and PulseX, with conducting un...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Firestone reported Q4 revenue of $12.6m from its Liqhobong mine, in Lesotho, down almost 40 per cent on the previous quarter. Operations as the mine resumed in October 2022 after a two-and-a-half year closure, so there is no comparable Q4 figure for last year. The London-based miner said in its quarterly update that it sold 125,556 carats in Q4, down 35 per cent on Q3, and that it...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Yet another month of decline for rounds during July, and of mixed fortunes for fancies. Rounds saw wholesale losses in some sizes in most sizes above 0.80-cts, more so than in previous months.India's polished exports slipped by almost a third in June, and half of all diamond workers there are reportedly on reduced wages. Manufacturers are switching to lower-priced fancies, or...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Russia's finance ministry is to launch an online platform for jewelry sales as it aims to increase exports to Asia and beyond.It's designed to open up new markets for manufacturers, minimize their administrative costs and reduce the number of fakes, according to a report in the Russian newspaper Izvestia.Russia and fellow members of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) - Be...Read More