Impact of COVID-19 may ring in changes for diamond industry back in the doldrums

The Constellation diamond recovered by Lucara                                                                                  Image credit: Lucara

(miningmx.com) – In a world boiled down to ‘essentials’, it’s easy to see why the anguished cries of celebrities “trapped” in their multi-million dollar holiday homes has become faintly risible, deeply contemptible at worst. So, too, the need to indulge in luxuries. Even were your local jewellery store open for business, it would seem somewhat off-message to be paddling down there to participate in a bit of high-end retail therapy. That’s why the world’s diamond sector is back where it started 2019: in the doldrums. However, Patrick Mann, an analyst for Bank of America Merrill Lynch in a note in April said there were some limited transactions happening in the big diamond sector, which in his opinion was a sign that high value and big stone producers could outperform short-term relative to small diamond producers in the current environment.