Further Decline for IDEX Polished Price Index in July

(IDEX Online) - The IDEX Polished Price Index saw a further sharp decrease during July, closing 3.26 per cent down on the previous month.

The Index appears to be correcting itself after the June blip, when anxiety over US reciprocal tariffs saw an unprecedented two-day surge in prices and the Index rose by 4.83 per cent.

In the event, the introduction of tariffs was actually postponed from 9 July and they came into force last Friday (1 August).

But aside from the blip, the overall trend remains firmly downwards, reflecting an ongoing decline in confidence, and weak global demand for natural diamonds.

The overall trend remains downwards, as it has for the last three years. At its 2022 peak, the index reached almost 155. The July 2025 figure represents a decline of more than 40 per cent from that high.

Month-to-month prices were down 2.5 per cent in July, suffering their worst fall since January 2024. Part of this an Index correction following the tariff blip in June, when prices fell by 0.8 per cent. Since April 2022, price drops have dominated and there have been only four monthly increases.

Year-to-year prices show more stability, down 10.3 per cent in July, after falls of 10.9 per cent in June and 11.4 per cent in May. Year-to-year prices have fallen every month since December 2022.

July saw a broader, steeper price drop across all sizes shown below compared to the mixed movements in June. The largest single decrease was for 0.5-cts, down 4.8 per cent, compared with just 0.4 per cent in June. Larger sizes saw progressively smaller declines, with the exception of 5.0-cts.

Year-on-year price movements in July largely mirrored to those in May and June. The steepest falls were in the smaller sizes (0.5-cts -17.8 per cent, 1.0-cts -15.9 per cent) indicating persistent weakness. Larger goods also dropped, but typically less.

All sizes shown below continue to see significant price declines, more notably among 0.50-cts and 1.0-cts than among larger goods.