Rough-gem prices are up by more than 10 percent since the start of the year and have risen for four straight months, though the second half of the year figures to prove more challenging for the diamond industry, Bloomberg writes. The article says that it’s been six years since diamond prices increased in the July-December time frame, and now weaker global demand along with credit tightening for diamond polishers are two factors that are working against the industry.
“I can’t see a good summer ahead,” Ben Davis, a mining analyst at Liberum Capital Ltd, told the business news outlet. “From here it’s hard to be optimistic. … I don’t think we’ll test the lows we saw in January, but we could drift lower. There’s definitely a risk we’ll drift down in the third quarter.”
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