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Global Dash-For-Trash Escalates, 'Cheap' Diamonds Are A Chinese Girl's Best Friend
While the global 'central-bank-inspired' wealth effect has benefited the uber-rich more than anyone else, it seems China's burgeoning middle class is more than happy to 'settle' for mediocrity in their fascination with luxury goods. As Bloomberg notes, the demand for diamonds is so heavy (and less discriminatory) that the price of lower-quality gems has surged as the price of high-quality 'flawless' diamonds has been very subdued. Since the US equity market lows in March 2009, the best quality diamonds have appreciated by around 5-7% whereas the lower-quality 'imperfect' stones have gained over 35%. As one Antwerp dealer noted, "the cultural taboo of having to buy the finest diamonds is broken," as the 'snob effect' has disappeared. China (retail sales up 18%) surpassed Japan in 2011 to become the biggest diamond consuming nation behind the US but it would appear we need to add a 5th 'C' to the famous diamond ranking" clarity, cut, color, carat, and cheapness. Simply put, another dealer noted, "people have latched on to the fact that when you buy a lower quality diamond, there is not always a big difference in appearance."
This chart shows performance from 03/06/09 for high- and low-quality diamond prices. We have smoothed the high-quality series as it was very noisy. Low quality is up around 37% in this time against around 5.7% for high-quality.
Via Bloomberg,
China’s burgeoning middle class is buying diamonds so quickly that the price of mass-market stones is rising faster around the world than for top-quality jewels affordable only to the super-rich.
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“The Chinese consumer’s fascination with luxury goods has grown dramatically, along with their pockets,”
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China’s market was initially fueled by a rich elite pursuing the best diamonds available. As the economy grew, a new wave of buyers emerged, opening the market to lower-quality stones that form the bedrock of U.S. and European demand.
“The cultural taboo of having to buy the finest diamond is broken,” said Anish Aggarwal, a partner at Antwerp, Belgium- based industry consulting firm Gemdax. “Really high-quality was the sacred thing. You needed to buy fine diamonds, there was a snob effect. That has just disappeared.”
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China surpassed Japan in 2011 to become the biggest diamond consuming nation behind the U.S. Retail sales of diamond jewelry jumped 18 percent to $9.2 billion in 2011. Sales in India gained 17 percent.
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Sales of discretionary goods in China will grow by a compounded annual rate of 13 percent between 2010 and 2020, as shoppers in the world’s largest economy after the U.S. become richer, McKinsey & Co. said in a report in March 2012.
Rising demand will put pressure on stretched supplies. Diamond producers have struggled to find new large mines to replace aging assets. Production at many of the biggest mines is falling as supplies of more accessible diamonds near the surface are depleted.
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“Traditionally, it was quality, and in particular clarity, that was the most important consideration, now it’s much more of a mixed bag,” said Gemdax’s Aggarwal. “People have latched on to the fact that when you buy a lower quality diamond there is not always a big difference in appearance. There is however, a big difference in price.”
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Cheap diamonds work great for cutting tungsten bars...
AnAnalogousAnus has a girlfriend? must be a blobbing up "friend". What's for dinner AnAn?
"Diamonds are shiny beads"
"Tungsten is gold"
“War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.”
Forward.
You can buy diamonds and depend on their value from DeBeers,
Or Real Estate and have government tax the crap out of it,
or Gold
Ah, De Beers, the diamond cartel!
The Fed of diamonds.
De Beers has been suspected of rigging the diamond markets for decades now by rigging supply to keep prices high for diamonds.
And than there's the synthetic diamonds...
NOP, I'll never invest in that. For me it's just like crystal.
prains asked:
One hint: he met her while fishing for river pigs.
LOL....river pigs
And I think they can crank out industrial diamonds now that are clear as water, in almost any size you might want.
Used to be industrial diamonds were small and coal-black.
Or cubic Boron Nitride ... almost indistinguishable from diamond.
Artificial diamonds are yet another risk in buying diamonds. Among several others...
My grandmother proudly wears a large cubic zirconium, and laughs about how jealous her girlfriends are.
Diamonds aren't even a rare mineral. The high price is artificial scarcity imposed by the cartels. Totally for the sheeple.
That's true, too. Without being well familiar with the topic, I was always wondering how did De Beers manage to control a monopoly in diamonds for so long... I was also wondering isn't it about time this monopoly position becomes history? Has it already happened?
Yeah I was reading they were becoming better and better and cheaper and cheaper. Are you or anyone else here familiar with this topic?
To me it looks like diamonds are rapidly becoming obsolete as a store of value, is that right? I guess no type of natural diamond would be immune from eventually being matched and excelled by artificial ones.
Actually, the Chinese buying cheap diamonds does not surprise me. The article makes a very important observation for those of us "not in the business":
That the color and clarity differences between diamond grades are very difficult for non-experts to assess. My first job out of college was as a Manager Trainee at a jewelry store. If I had stayed there, I would have been eligible to get (free!) training to become a Gemologist. Gemologists spend more time looking at diamonds then all the rest of gemstones put together.
I found in my own informal examinations of the various diamonds in the store that it was not easy, even at 10x, to see flaws and the slight yellow coloring so common in the medium and lower grades.
Diamonds, bitchez
The good news is that you can find a cute young squeeze that will do anything to anybody nowadays.
The bad news is that the clap has gone total antibiotic resistant.
oops.
diamonds are the most overrated gemstone you can buy- but that's the power of advertising on weak female minds. there was a good article in The Atlantic a few years ago about what a total racket the diamond biz is- kind of like the stock market-and guess which Chosen People controls both rackets ( it sure as fuck ain't the amish).
Amish make their own hats
maybe Nilla Ice will wear one in his new show where he lives with the Amish in Ohio- word to your mutha.
Pimp dat buggy.
Classic article. Classic marketing program. Classic cartel. All things pass....
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/02/have-you-ever-tried-...
FWIW I well remember back in the fifth grade in the 1950's, the nice man in the dark gray suit who came to show 'n' tell all the boys and girls just how amazing, wonderful and special diamonds were. Yes, diamonds were the Eighth Wonder of the World, boys and girls! Absolutely brilliant stuff. Absolutely implacable.
Was he wearing a funny looking hat?
Sorry Otto. It is not weak female minds that is the problem here. It is weak male minds that buy the diamonds at the request of the female minds who - as you note - fall prey to the ads.
At the root of the problem (pun intended) is the male looking to impress the female with shiny stuff. Diamonds, cars, houses, clothes, whatever. Nothing has changed over the last few hundred thousand years. Men want sex and women want stuff for security in the future.
As for myself, I blame it all on God. He gave men two heads, but only enough blood to run one at a time.
Didn't the Soviets have a diamond meteor strike awhile back, worth upwards of a quadrillion bucks or so?
Space Diamondz, bitchez!
Supposedly the meteor ones are classified as industrial diamonds.
Though, apparently diamond manufacturing can make high quality jewellery diamonds.
They'll buy anything that isn't made in China. Smart fuckers.
Haha they think they're getting diamonds , but they're really getting cheap American cubic zirconia trinkets. The jokes on them.
Payback's a bitch.
A pussy is still a pussy in Shanghai no matter how you look at it.
Yu wan sucky sucky fo brue dimon?
Seems like a rediculous analysis. Roll the start date forward a few months and their performance is almost identical.
Seems redicruous... re-dick-ruuuous... reedicrous...
Portability
LOUSY resale value though (unless you are in the trade). They only give you 30% of retail.
Correct.
Even as a trade-in, worse than trading in a car by 30% at least, and that is bad to begin with.
Couple of local shops would only give me $1K for a stone that 25 years ago cost $2,500.
Stones they were selling that were equivalent carat/grade were $3,000-$3,500.
Faghet abouot it! I'll sell it myself to some young guy with stars in his eyes.
The prices are managed across the industry by the diamond cartel, the way The Fed controls money supply and debt rates.
If you're not in the Club, you're an Outsider.
Carbon investing? On diamonds? Good luck with that one.
Untraceable. They could be used for money laundering or terrorism funding. Better crack down and require fingerprints and photo ID's, maybe even background checks and retina scans to buy them.
Wait, what am I saying this is an article on free Communist China not lock down Fascist America. Forward!
Untraceable but also unsellable. How much would you pay for a 1-carat diamond of marginal quality (in exchange for drugs or gold or cash)? Probably 20 to 50% of the 'retail' price. It seems like a horrible way to store/transfer wealth. Gold may be much more difficult to smuggle or transfer, but at least it's a stable store of value. Cash is always preferable, though. Nothing facilitates an exchange of goods like a stack of Franklins.
Franklins today... but tomorrow it may be small arms cartridges, cans of salmon, and pouches of stale tobacco that facilitate and motivate.
There are De Beers (cartel) centers on each continent.
Doubt anyone else can use diamonds like BTC when buying and selling gold. But within that select group, "yes you can" swap gold for diamonds at both ends and keep the agreed prices.
Think of it as a private Bitcoin. Private to the cartel.
Bank notes are traceable, which is why a crate in the trunk of gold "jewelry" or a satchel in the glove box of "stones for jewelry" plus a good Hawala broker are steps in the preferred Asian/African process for money laundering for "socially unacceptable" purposes.
Proper money laundering isn't cheap, and as the surveillance technology improves, steps are added to the process driving the cost further upwards. Just ask your not-so-friendly not-so-local Fortune 500 company about their accounting and legal bills...
Sort of like the ammunition situation... the 20 and 50 packs of "flawless" stuff remain pretty stable in price and availability while the 100 and 500 packs of crap ammo have skyrocketed in price and plummeted in supply.
Damn, was hoping to sell my Ex. Wife's engagement ring of superior quality for a killing.
Oh well, figures.
Hope everyone had a chance to BTFD. Next to the last chance you'll ever get.
I do not understand my fellow females. I have a friend who is 26, who is very, very smart, and very, very skeptical. She got pregnant, she wanted a diamond. Sure, the guy doesn't want to get married (he is working like crazy to support her and the infant), but she wanted a diamond. They're broke because his wages are low and life is expensive, but she wanted a diamond. A small diamond, okay, but a diamond. Well, she got the diamond.
Diamonds are easy to fake. Cubic zirconium looks just like the real thing.
Diamonds are hard to re-sell. You get a fraction of what you paid.
Diamonds are actually really common; there's no genuine shortage. You're supporting an incredibly obnoxious cartel.
Is it the Zales ads? The Kaye ads? They're vile! I just don't understand!!!!
If my husband brought home a diamond I would be frantic to return it. I presume that you can't, since then they'd lose lots of sales to buyer's remorse. But maybe not. Maybe you can return them, within some time frame - because women are so insane about them that there would be no buyer's remorse.
One word:
Indoctrinated.
I would have to say that of the two sexes, women are definitely the most victimized by advertising. Jesus, look what most women are willing to do to their bodies in the pursuit of matching it to look like what they see in movies, TV and magazines. It is a symptom of American culture. Men are addicted to porn and become conditioned to lust after plastic barbie dolls, and women will do anything to look like one in order to attract a man... motivated of course by lack of self worth, money, or a geniune desire for companionship(LOL).
This shit is so fucked.
You don't need to fake a diamond, they are manufacturable. The Russians have factories turning out loads of the things. I think the technology is available in the US as well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_diamond
http://gemesis.com/
Diamond is diamond is diamond, a specific crystal of carbon. Which means perfect gem quality diamonds are as available as there is demand for them. A decade and diamonds will be common as muck.
In the meantime, there is another compound which is sparklier than diamond, or cubic zirconia it has a higher refractive index so the gemstones produce more "fire". If you put a moissanite (silicon carbide) gem beside an equivalent real diamond, everybody will tell you the diamond is the fake because it looks dull in comparison.
http://www.moissanitevsdiamondrings.com/differences-between-moissanite-a...
The value of diamonds is maintained by tight control over supply and exceedingly clever marketing. The people who control the diamond trade have enough diamonds in stock to put one on every finger and every toe of every women over the age of 5.
Diamonds are given to women, the most important thing is does it get you laid.
Za Za Gabor always used to say, "darling when the engagement is broken always return the ring.....but keep the stone."
I have noticed this effect over the years with real estate as well. The bottom part of a market moves upwards at a faster pace than the top part. I think it is simply a function of more buyers available at the bottom end and not just a lack of the snob factor.
Before you ever think of investing in diamonds read this and wisen up
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/02/have-you-ever-tried-to-sell-a-diamond/304575/
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/02/have-you-ever-tried-...
Have alwways found this ro be a fascinating article.
And someone beat me too it!
Soon to follow: and ETF for investing in diamonds (like paper gold and silver, etc?)
When I got hitched, I budgeted for a diamond, bought some nice normal 99.999 rings and then took the difference and bought more 99.999 gold. I recommend the same to everyone I run into. It's traditional, diamonds are just a scam. Rings were traditionally only for women anyways. The giving of them is to represent an investment and a security. "In case of hardship, break glass" sorta thing. Diamonds have no real resale value.
Diamonds are a bigger racket than the Fed. A manipulated market created by de Beers and run as a cartel for years with heavy advertising to convince men to buy women 4 C diamonds instead of zirconium and especially in full carat sizing.
It is another shibboleth that has been smashed