The sideways drift in diamond prices continued throughout February. Although prices strengthened slightly in the middle of the month, they slipped back in the final week to finish the month lower than they started.

The overall PolishedPrices index finished the month at 137.7, 0.4% below the level at the end of January. The average for February stood at 139.4 points, 0.7% higher than January’s average but 10.7% below the average for February  2012. The Index has slipped by 1.1% during the first two months of the year.

So far this year, the main PolishedPrices index has remained within the bounds that we expected at the start of the year with our forecast of steady in unspectacular rises in prices.

Speculation about short term rough shortages, due to various production problems has caused some increases to rough prices which will put further pressure on manufacturing margins.

By Richard Platt.