The Trade Must Do Its Part for Diamond Prices – and We’ll Do Ours 

Diamond prices are currently at a historic low. This might be an excellent time to buy natural diamonds, especially high-quality ones that face less competition from synthetics. 

When it comes to natural diamonds, the industry looks to the Rapaport Group for guidance on pricing. We are aware of the tension as the trade waits for price changes on Thursdays at 11:59 p.m. EST. The stability of wholesale polished prices is critical to dealers’ and manufacturers’ margins and overall businesses.  

The Rapaport Price List reflects our opinion of New York high cash asking prices. Our market intelligence powers it, but real-life supply and demand trends shape what those prices are. 

How those trends play out is largely in the industry’s hands. 

On the demand side, the industry has invested in marketing natural diamonds, but not at the required scale. De Beers is shelling out its largest marketing spend in more than 10 years and has debuted a new campaign dedicated to celebrity and lifestyle content to entice younger consumers. The Luanda Accord in June of last year was a crucial move toward reviving funding for the Natural Diamond Council (NDC), which had suffered shortfalls since Alrosa pulled out at the start of the Russia-Ukraine war in 2022. Angola’s state-owned diamond companies, Endiama and Sodiam, formally joined the NDC earlier this year with a contribution of $8 million, which De Beers is matching. Diamond desire will not recover without more efforts of this type. 

As for supply, the pipeline is beginning to adapt to current conditions. De Beers has slashed its 2026 production plan. Savvy manufacturers are tailoring output to demand. The number of jewelry businesses operating in the US as of September 30, 2025, was down 3% year on year, according to the Jewelers Board of Trade (JBT). Further consolidation is inevitable and necessary. 

Many of the forces shaping the market lie outside the industry’s control. Declines in US consumer spending power over the past three years gave synthetics a helping hand. China’s economic slowdown continues to hurt the market, though Hong Kong-based retailers are starting to report stabilization in diamond sales. US tariffs have been yet another hurdle since last April, although the trade is hopeful that these will soon be history. 

The entire industry must work on the aspects it can control in order for diamond prices to stabilize and eventually recover.  

For our part, we plan to become more transparent in 2026 in the way we build the Rapaport Price List. Historically, it remains unchanged most weeks; it all comes down to the weeks with changes. How does the pricing team decide to make those changes to the list, and by what magnitude? How much is data-driven versus human judgment based on industry knowledge? We plan to share more information with our customers this year so they can better estimate whether Rapaport will announce a change. We’re working to understand whether these changes will help smooth the process and reduce any impact on sentiment, given that the data will be available on an ongoing basis. This is all part of our commitment to transparency. 

Main image: Rapaport Group CEO Dan Mano. (Orna Gutman Levy)