Carat Capital
The Six Desks
D—01Diamondsthe stone that runs on trust D—02Gold & Metalsthe metal beneath every margin D—03Colored Gemstonessupply lines drawn in emerald, ruby and sapphire D—04Watcheshaute horlogerie, priced by the second D—05Auctions & Estateswhere the trade marks itself to market D—06Retail & Technologythe counter, rebuilt for the next generation
The Paper
Front Page The Field Guide — Learn the Trade The Record — Eight Weeks of the Trade The Almanac — The Quarter in Numbers The Natural Diamond Price List — Every Shape, Every Weight The Lab-Grown Diamond Price List — What a Made Diamond Costs The Carat Indices — The Trade, Marked to Market The Folio — The Week, Bound The Price Tape About the Paper Editorial Standards Write to the Desk
Carat Capital · The trade paper of the jewelry world · Est. MMXXVI · Free to read
CC/08-12Wednesday 12 August 2026The Diamonds Desk · Diamonds Desk · Polished
Diamonds Desk · PolishedDiamonds · CC/08-12

1.7% in the cheap colours: what July's flat month hid

This paper led on 4 August with the one-carat index flat in July, ending a thirteen-month slide. Rapaport's August newsletter breaks that flat month open by colour: K to M goods averaged 1.7% while the better colours averaged 0.1%.

By The Diamonds Desk12 August 2026Brief 55 sec · Full read 3 min
PLATE IThe number
1.7%
K to M colours, monthly average
One-carat polished, July 2026 · monthly move by colour band, per cent
K To M, Vs+2.8%
K To M, Average+1.7%
D-F And G-J, If-Vvs And Vs+0.1%
Source One-carat polished, July
What changed

A flat month has a shape inside it. This paper led on 4 August with the RapNet Diamond Index for one-carat polished unchanged across July, closing a slide that had run without a positive print since June 2025.

What it means · The Desk’s View

The recovery is starting at the cheap end of the colour scale too, and that is worth more to a buyer than another month of watching the one-carat headline. Two dimensions now point the same way, size and colour, and both say the same thing about who is doing the buying: the money is coming back at the bottom and working upward, slowly, one price point at a time.

The instruction is practical. A dealer holding K to M goods has just been told those parcels moved while better colours did not, and a dealer waiting for the one-carat headline to turn before restocking has been reading a number that averages away the only part of the market that is working.

Watch whether the August figures put a second positive month on the cheap colours. One month is composition; two is a trend.

The article3 sections · 420 words
Table I · One-carat polished, July 2026 · monthly move by colour band, per cent
Figure
K To M, Vs+2.8%
K To M, Average+1.7%
D-F And G-J, If-Vvs And Vs+0.1%
Figures from Rapaport's Diamond Pulse, August 2026, describing July moves. The headline one-carat index was unchanged for the month; these are its components. Carat Capital graphics desk.  CC/2026/217

IThe shape inside a flat month

Rapaport's Diamond Pulse for August now breaks that same month open by colour, and the flat line turns out to be an average of two different markets. One-carat goods in D to F and G to J colour, in IF to VVS and VS clarity, averaged a gain of 0.1% in July.

K to M colours averaged 1.7%. K to M in VS swung from a 0.1% loss to a 2.8% gain.

A flat index is an average, and averages hide the thing that moved. On the newsletter's own figures the cheapest colour band ran seventeen times the gain of the better bands last month, this desk's division of 1.7 by 0.1, which is the sort of ratio that only survives while the numerator is small.

The point is not the multiple. The point is that the recovery this paper has been describing since 14 July as a bottom-up move now has a second dimension.

It was already running from the bottom of the size chart: in the same July, 0.30-carat goods gained 1.6% and 0.50-carat goods 1.8% against a flat one-carat, figures this paper published on 4 August. It is now also running from the bottom of the colour scale.

IIBottom-up in two dimensions now

That fits what the trade has been buying rather than what it has been saying. The goods moving are the goods a cautious retailer reorders, and a K to M stone at VS clarity is exactly the compromise a buyer makes when the budget is fixed and the carat weight is not negotiable.

It also means the headline number a jeweller quotes as evidence of a turn is the one number in the set that did not turn.

The one-carat index was flat because a near-flat top and a rising bottom cancelled inside it, and anyone reading the single figure took away the opposite of what the components say.

IIIOne source, and it owns the index

The limits of this should be stated. It is one source, and that source is the owner of the index reporting on its own index, which makes it primary and interested at the same time; there is no second publisher of RapNet colour-band moves to check it against.

The rest of the August newsletter is material this paper has already run and re-checked rather than new: global rough production down 8% to 98.8 million carats in 2025 ran here on 27 July, De Beers' first-half revenue down 19% to $1.58 billion ran here on 31 July, and the Section 301 bands of 10% and 12.5% on jewellery and gemstone imports ran here on 25 July.

The colour split is the one line in it this paper had not published.

The depthMethod, sources, corrections · open what you need
01Method · the desk’s arithmetic+

Figures from Rapaport's Diamond Pulse, August 2026, describing July moves. The headline one-carat index was unchanged for the month; these are its components.

02Sources4 documents
The Morning Brief · free

The trade, filed before the New York open.

Prices, tenders and the one story that moved the industry overnight. Ninety seconds.

Subscribe free →
Clarity, daily.