CaratThe 1-carat stops falling: polished's best month since the tariffs
July ended a thirteen-month slide in the 1-carat index at flat, while 0.30-carat rose 1.6%, 0.50-carat rose 1.8% and 3-carat rose 0.2%. The first month since March 2025 with nothing falling.
§1Thirteen months, ended level.
Thirteen months of decline ended in July, and it ended level. The RapNet Diamond Index for 1-carat polished was unchanged across the month, closing a fall that had run without a single positive print since June 2025, on figures Rapaport published on Tuesday. The three other headline sizes moved up: 0.30-carat gained 1.6%, 0.50-carat gained 1.8% and 3-carat gained 0.2%. It is the first month since March 2025 in which none of the four fell, which makes July the best month for polished prices since the April 2025 tariff schedule began rearranging where a stone can profitably be cut.
The 0.50-carat print is the one to mark, because 1.8% is that size's largest monthly gain since March 2025 and because it belongs to the band the American engagement counter actually clears. This desk has now filed the same shape four times: smalls turning first on 14 July, smalls again on 24 July, and the thirties outrunning the ones on 27 July. What has changed is that the largest size in the set has stopped subtracting. A recovery led by 0.30-carat goods with the 1-carat still falling is a mix shift. A recovery in which the 1-carat holds is a floor.
§2Some of it is a duty line.
Geography did some of the work, and the trade should be honest about which part. The tariff schedule in force since late July keeps 10% on polished goods finished in India while loose natural diamonds cut in Belgium, Botswana and Namibia clear at zero, a split this desk reported on 2 August. A price index measured on a network priced in dollars will reflect that gap before it reflects any change in consumer appetite. Some of July's gain is demand and some of it is a duty line, and nobody currently publishes a series that separates the two.
It is the first month since March 2025 in which none of the four fell
§3What is still not repaired.
What has not been repaired is still the larger part of the picture. Lab-grown goods continue to take the entry price point, Chinese demand remains weak on the tonnage series, and Angolan rough is still clearing at volumes the polished market did not ask for. Rapaport reports American buying concentrated in 2-carat rounds in G to J colour and VS1 to SI2 clarity, plus fancy shapes, which is a narrow lane rather than a broad bid. Our own tape carries NAT1 at 5,232.00 unchanged for a sixth session, and for the first time this week that is a sourced flat rather than an absent print.
A flat month is not a recovery, it is the end of a decline, and the two are worth different amounts of inventory. Four categories that stopped falling in the same month have told you the sellers ran out of reasons to cut, not that the buyers arrived. The test is September, when the Vicenzaoro and Hong Kong calendars put real parcels in front of real budgets and the tariff-sorted origins get priced against each other in the same hall. Until then, treat July as the first month in more than a year that did not cost you money to hold goods.
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