(IDEX Online) - Over the past 10 years, fancy color diamond prices have increased 77 percent. That's according to newly released information from the Fancy Color Research Foundation (FCRF).
Tracking the Fancy Color Diamond Index for the past decade shows that the price of pink diamonds has increased 116 percent, blue diamond prices have risen 81 percent and yellow diamond prices have moved up 21 percent.
Among the best-performing goods of the last 10 years are 5-carat pink diamonds, whose prices have increased 99 percent; 1-carat fancy vivid blue diamonds, which have seen increases of 135 percent and 3- and 5-carat fancy vivid yellow diamonds, which have risen 30 percent in price.
The story for 2019, however, is not as positive. The general index fell 1.4 percent, mainly because of a 5.4-percent decrease in the price of yellow diamonds, says the FCRF. The pink and blue categories showed more stability.
In the pink category, fancy vivid pinks increased by 4.4 percent, while 3-carat fancy vivid pinks increased by 9.1 percent.
In the blue category, the 1-carat, 1.5-carat and 2-carat categories increased by 2.5 percent, 3.7 percent and 2.7 percent and 1.5-carat fancy vivid blue diamonds increased 7.2 percent.
In the yellow category, 10-carat fancy vivid yellow diamonds decreased by 6.1 percent and 3-carat fancy intense yellow diamonds saw a price decrease of 5.3 percent.
Q4 2019
Pink
In Q4 2019, pink diamond prices fell 0.2 percent. Fancy vivid pinks in the 2-carat category rose by 1.7 percent while 1-carat and 8-carat fancy pink items declined by 1.2 percent and 1.1 percent respectively. The 5-carat fancy pink category decreased by 2.7 percent during the quarter and also declined the most significantly for 2019.
Blue
Blue diamond prices declined by 0.5 percent, mainly because of the decline of 2.1 percent in the 8-carat fancy blue category and a decrease of 2.2 percent in 5-carat fancy intense blue diamonds. The 8-carat fancy intense blue category, however, increased 2 percent.
Yellow
The only category showing a significant increase was the fancy vivid yellow 10-carat category, which rose by 1 percent. The greatest price drop was -4.3 percent in the fancy vivid yellow 5-carat category.
"The declines we witnessed in 2019 in the fancy color index are a ripple effect caused by the double-digit decrease in the colorless category in the last few years," said FCRF advisory board member Jim Pounds. "From the mining perspective we are currently experiencing a shortage in high quality fancy color rough and we therefore feel quite optimistic about the future."