Diamonds: an investor’s best friend?

Investing in diamonds: an investors best friend?

Eavesdrop on a group of men in a pub and what do you think you will overhear? Five years ago the answer was simple, according to Tanya Gold, writing in The Guardian. They would have been talking about beer and football. Not any more. These days, they're as likely to be discussing designer clothes and diamond rings. In August, diamond giant DeBeers announced that rough-gem sales rose by 7% in the first six months of this year. But the gems are not gracing feminine fingers. "Today it is boys, not debutantes, who are throwing themselves through the doors of Graff, Tiffany, Aspreys, Cartier and Garrard": the rise of the "bling bling" culture means that around 10% of precious-metal jewellery is now bought by men for themselves. At the same time, professional women are increasingly displaying their confidence and cash by buying their own trinkets, says The Mail on Sunday. According to Red Media Premium Knowledge, in the past year 40% of buyers of designer jewellery costing over £500 were treating themselves.

This sounds good for the retail trade, but rising demand is not feeding through into profits. Consider the case of luxury jeweller Tiffany. In the third quarter of this year overall sales rose by 1% (they were up by 4% in the US, but were poor in Japan). Yet net income fell 26% year on year as the firm's gross margins contracted by 1.9%. Why? Because silver prices have risen from £3 an ounce to more than £4 in the last 12 months, gold is hitting 18-year highs and De Beers has raised diamond prices three times this year (by a total of 14%). Worse, for jewellers is that there is little sign of the price crunch ending soon. The falling dollar (see cover story on page 20) and a tight supply and demand situation will keep gold and silver high for the foreseeable future and gem miners say it's true of their products too. Take diamonds. Not only are they in demand for rings and tiaras (last year jewellery demand in China rose by 22%), but they are far from simply decorative. Of the diamonds mined annually, fewer than 20% end up in jewellery - the other 80% are used in anything from lasers to drill bits and surgical equipment. Because of their hardness, diamond-edged tools can cut much faster than other tools: they resist wear and do not change size with heat. The US is the world's largest consumer of industrial diamonds and its annual imports are expected to increase through 2006. That means diamond shortages and price rises lasting at least that long, a view backed up by the fact that De Beers (which controls 65% of the world's production) says it has worked its way through its stockpiles and will soon be relying on only newly mined stones for supply.

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