Investors are taking notice of these gems.
High-dollar colored diamonds — sometimes selling for more than $1 million per carat — are attracting new audiences in the investment world, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Recent major purchases of such gems are “part of a boom in niche over-the-counter luxury markets that were once the preserve of wealthy collectors, according to the newspaper.
Investors turned to such assets because they were dissatisfied with the returns they were getting in other areas, the Journal reports. And now their interest in colored diamonds is sending prices upward.
Citing data from the Fancy Color Research Foundation, the newspaper notes that prices for blue diamonds have climbed 70 percent since 2009. Prices for pink diamonds, meanwhile, have risen by close to 180 percent.
The Journal sounds a note of caution on colored diamonds as an investment, explaining: “Just 12% to 15% of deals are done at auction, according to [Eden Rachminov, managing partner of Tel-Aviv-based Rachminov Diamonds], with the rest being private sales or tenders, making it hard for investors to gauge a stone’s market price.”
Read more at the Wall Street Journal