Would colored diamonds glam up your portfolio?

According to Chris Carter, diamonds in all different hues are always in style

A welcome boost to the diamond industry has come from the rock that is currently on Taylor Swift's finger and the doubling of tariffs on Indian goods by US President Donald Trump. According to Jinjoo Lee in The Wall Street Journal, Americans are the largest buyers of diamond jewelry, and India cuts and polishes the majority of the world's diamonds. Swift's involvement increased the shares in a few listed jewelry retailers. However, it is unlikely that the increase in diamond prices will last much longer than Swift's wedding cake. That's because the industry has been damaged by the emergence of an almost limitless supply of artificial colorless diamonds. Contrarily, color diamonds have shown themselves to be far more resilient.

The rarity of colored diamonds in comparison to colorless ones is one of several factors that contribute to this. Color diamonds of the "fancy" type, which is a measure of color intensity in the Gemological Institute of America's GIA grading system, make up only about 0.01% of gem-quality mined diamonds. They are extremely uncommon. Naturally, each one is slightly unique due to the presence of internal flaws called "inclusions" in the diamonds as well as the variations in sizes, colors, tones, and saturations. Thus, it is difficult to keep track of color diamond valuations. However, the Fancy Color Research Foundation (FCRF) reports that over the last 20 years, the price of fancy color diamonds has increased at a compound annual rate of 5 to 7% annually.

How much did the priciest colored diamond sell for?

The sole surviving child of the doomed French queen Marie Antoinette, Duchess Marie-Thrse dAngoulme, once owned a 10.38-carat pink diamond that sold for nearly £14 million this summer at Christie's in New York. A pink gem, the 59-point-60-carat Pink Star, set the record for the most expensive color diamond ever sold at auction in 2017 when it sold for £71-two million at Sotheby's in Hong Kong. Given the extent to which nature has gone to create them, these prices are not shocking.

Diamond in pink.

Deep underground, diamonds are formed over millions, if not billions, of years under tremendous pressure. The most common, though still extremely rare, yellow diamonds contain nitrogen, while black diamonds contain graphite and blue diamonds contain boron. However, the extra stresses that pink diamonds received during their formation changed their lattice crystal structure, giving them their color rather than impurities. Red diamonds, which are essentially just an extension of pink diamonds along the color spectrum, are no different. Only a small number of them are found worldwide, making them the rarest of all. Additionally, there are now very few or no newly mined pink diamonds available for purchase since the 2020 closure of Rio Tinto's Argyll mine in Australia, which produced 90% of the world's supply. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that a group of thieves who had gone to considerable measures to steal a 21-point-5-carat pink diamond were apprehended by Dubai police last month. The estimated value was £25 million.