RAPAPORT... Sales of jewelry and other luxury items in Hong Kong fell for the 12th consecutive month in January amid a sharp downturn in tourism and an early Lunar New Year. Revenue from jewelry, watches, clocks and other valuable gifts slid 42% year on year to HKD 4.92 billion ($632.2 million) during the month, the municipality's Census and Statistics Department reported last week. Sales acr...Read More
RAPAPORT... Jewelry was among the best-performing categories at Macy's during the fourth fiscal quarter, even as overall sales declined at the department-store chain.Group revenue dropped 1.4% year on year to $8.34 billion in the three months ending February 1, while comparable-store sales - at owned and licensed shops open for at least a year - fell 0.5%, the retailer reported last week. How...Read More
RAPAPORT... The Women's Jewelry Association (WJA) has launched a new consumer-marketing campaign aimed at empowering women to buy jewelry for themselves.March Is Me Month will coincide with International Women's Day, which takes place on March 8, as well as Women's History Month. The goal of the campaign is to get women to buy themselves a piece of fine jewelry during the month, no matter the...Read More
RAPAPORT... The Women's Jewelry Association (WJA) has launched a new consumer-marketing campaign aimed at empowering women to buy jewelry for themselves.March is Me Month will coincide with International Women's Day, which takes place on March 8, as well as Women's History Month. The goal of the campaign is to get women to buy themselves a piece of fine jewelry during the month, no matter the...Read More
Russian miner Alrosa’s investment committee has approved financing for preliminary engineering studies at the Jubilee diamond mine, to provide up-to-date information to decide on the construction of an underground mine.The Jubilee pipe of the Aikhal division is currently being mined by openpit methods.AdvertisementIn 2019, the company considered technical specifications and decided to start...Read More
(IDEX Online) - India's diamond exports are expected to drop by a fifth this year, say forecasters. Coronavirus combined with sluggish global demands, have badly hit the second biggest cutting and polishing country in the world. Total diamond exports in the first nine months of the fiscal year were down 18 per cent year-on-year, according to a report published today by Crisil Ratings, the Mum...Read More
LONDON – After watching diamond sales plunge in 2019 as a crisis engulfed the industry, De Beers is taking action to help its struggling buyers.The middlemen who cut, polish and trade the world’s gems were at the center of a disastrous year for the diamond industry last year, after a glut of both rough and polished stones destroyed profit margins and banks tightened financing. De Beers...Read More
(IDEX Online) - De Beers is reportedly set to update its terms with sightholders, in response to a disastrous year for the diamond industry in 2019. The 80 or so sightholders will be divided into dealers, manufacturers and integrated retailers, according to reports by Bloomberg and Reuters. As a result, they'll get stones better suited to their needs. Buyers currently have no choice but to ac...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Prices remained fairly stable in January, with the range of mixed but minor changes that have become a theme in recent months. There was isolated or limited movement in some categories of round and fancy, but a standstill in most.Larger rounds (1.50-2.99 ct) saw modest increases of up to 3 per cent and pointers (0.18 to 0.29 ct) were up in some categories around 5 per cent. Ha...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Russia's deputy finance minister Alexey Moiseev says he's working on a "road map" towards lifting a ban on rough diamond exports from parts of the Central African Republic (CAR). Exports have been allowed from some parts of the poverty-stricken country, labelled green areas, since a total ban was lifted in 2013. But sales of "conflict diamonds" from so-called "red areas",...Read More
RAPAPORT... Baselworld has called off this year's fair after Swiss authorities banned large-scale events because of the coronavirus.Show organizer MCH Group has postponed the event - which had been scheduled to take place April 30 to May 5 in Basel, Switzerland - to January 28 to February 2, 2021, it said Friday. From then on, the fair will take place at the beginning of each year, in accorda...Read More
RAPAPORT... De Beers plans to split sightholders into three categories and offer each group a more bespoke selection of rough diamonds as part of changes to its sales system.Manufacturers, dealers and retailers will sign specific supply contracts designed for the "broad needs" of each business model, a De Beers spokesperson told Rapaport News Thursday.The arrangement will take effect in Janua...Read More
RAPAPORT... Borsheims has promoted Jaci Stuifbergen to marketing manager. She will oversee the company's marketing strategies, programs and campaigns.Stuifbergen, who started at the Berkshire Hathaway-owned business in 2012, was promoted to senior marketing and event specialist in 2018. In her new role, she will be responsible for guiding the store's print and catalog production, digital adve...Read More
RAPAPORT... Marvin Heyman, president of jewelry manufacturer and brand Oscar Heyman & Brothers for 14 years, died on February 23 at the age of 89.Heyman began his career with the family-run firm started by his uncle in 1953, working as a bench jeweler in the shop as well as in the company's diamond office. After 10 years, he moved to the workshop alongside his father, Harry Heyman, becomi...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Baselworld, the largest watch and jewelry event in the world, has been forced to cancel its 2020 event because of coronavirus. Organizers said it had no option and was re-scheduling the show for January 2021. Last year Baselworld 2019 attracted 81,000 visitors, down by more than a fifth on the previous year. The cancellation also follows a ban by Swiss authorities on any gathering...Read More
Angola sold just over 9.44-million carats of diamonds last year, earning $1.299-billion, the National Diamond Commercialisation Company of Angola (Empresa Nacional de Comercialização de Angola) – better known as Sodiam – has reported. This represented a year-on-year increase of 12.3% in production and 6.2% in revenues. At the presentation of these figures, in Luanda, Ango...Read More
RAPAPORT... US retail sales will grow 3.5% to 4.1% this year, despite trade tensions and the spreading coronavirus epidemic, according to the National Retail Federation (NRF)."The nation's record-long economic expansion is continuing, and consumers remain the drivers of that expansion," NRF CEO Matthew Shay said Wednesday. "With gains in household income and wealth, lower interest rates and s...Read More
(IDEX Online) - It's a 1.53-carat lab-grown diamond ???,? ? and it's made of Pepsi. A clear, caramel-free version of the soft drink, Crystal Pepsi, was boiled down to its most basic form, according to the ad agency that dreamed up the idea, and the resulting carbon powder was used in the HPHT process. Pepsi describe the cola stone, set in a platinum band, a an "IGI Laboratory Grown...Read More
Diamond market weak as coronavirus shuts down China and weighs on global economy. Financial markets slump with Dow -7% (Feb. 21-27). Gold rallies +4% to $1,653 per ounce (Feb. 1-27). Indian market facing severe liquidity crunch as sales to China stop. Luxury retailers reviewing Hong Kong presence after 2019 protests and ongoing epidemic lead to drop in sales. De Beers gives sightholders added flex...Read More
ASX-listed Newfield Resources is on track to produce the first diamonds from its Tongo diamond mine, in Sierra Leone, in the fourth quarter of this year.The miner on Thursday also said it would soon start the drilling and blasting of the underground decline at Tongo, following the arrival of the mining and support equipment on site.AdvertisementThe underground mining machinery comprises two jumbo...Read More