Welcome to UNI Data Facets – our bi-weekly post on interesting developments in the diamond industry. In this inaugural installment, we will talk about the staple goods of the US market – the beloved 1ct I and H SI1 round diamonds. We will be discussing 3EX goods only.
Let’s start by looking at the price per carat trends for the two colors. In the past three months, we observe a clear upward trend until end of August, especially visible on H color. In September, the growth slows down and the prices seem to plateau.Fig. 1 – Price Trends for 1ct H I SI1
We can also see a pronounced dip mid-july, more so for H color.
While the price movements are important and knowing them is vital, they do not tell the full story without looking at available supply. On the month-to-month basis, the available supply of I SI1 dropped by 3.31%. In the same time, the average price of I SI1 stayed almost the same. This indicates scarcity of the goods on the market. On the other hand, the supply of H SI1 actually grew by 4%, with the price going up by 1.21%. The growth in available volume of goods is greater than growth in price, indicating certain abundance of goods.
The UNI Scarcity Index®1 values for I SI1 and H SI1 categories are 0.89 and -0.24 respectively.
Let’s dig a little bit deeper and check how the goods on the market break down in terms of Fluorescence. As one would expect, most of the goods are without fluorescence, next comes Faint fluorescence, then Medium. Slight, Very Slight, Strong and Very Strong Fluorescence goods together comprise below 4% of the market.Fig. 2: 1ct H and I SI1 : Goods distribution by Fluorescence
Looking at the price performance of goods by fluorescence shows an interesting picture. The chart below shows the price trends for None, Faint and Medium fluorescence (we omitted Slight, Very Slight, Strong and Very Strong for brevity).
Fig. 3 – 1ct Round H SI1 – Price Trends Breakdown by Fluorescence
Fig. 4 – 1ct Round I SI1 – Price Trends Breakdown by Fluorescence
For I color, there is a significant downward trend for Medium fluorescence goods. Seems like the market is no-fluorescence goods more.To sum up, we can see that the summer brought encouraging signs of recovery in one of the most popular diamond categories on the US market. Based on availability in this area pricing has stabilised, and looks like a great time to buy! In the future installments of the UNI Data Nuggets series, we will be sharing insights about other important categories of goods, and we will likely revisit the loveable 1ct I H SI1s in the coming months.Please do send us your feedback or inquiries – we may shape our next article according to your questions (not that we don’t have a plan of our own).
Disclaimer: The information in this report is based on UNI’s data repository that contains actual pricing and availability from over 90 manufacturers and wholesalers around the globe, with combined value of over $1.3B. The information is provided as-is, without any warranties express or implied.
1UNI Scarcity Index is calculated by applying certain transformations to changes in volume and changes in price, and takes values from -2 (abundance) to 2 (high scarcity)
