The stone market holds into a September RAPI now expected around October 9, leaving our two October 2 calls open, while the day’s real news is Petra opening a strategic review that may put assets up for sale

No new sight or tender cleared today, so the producer side would be quiet but for Petra Diamonds, which has opened a strategic review that it says covers all paths to meet the liquidity needs of the business, including a possible sale of assets. The company has sold three of its four mines in recent years and now holds only Cullinan in South Africa, with a new interim chair in place. For the midstream, this is a stress signal at the junior-producer end rather than a price move, and the thing to watch is whether a forced process pushes goods to tender.

The official September RAPI has still not been published, and Rapaport’s most recent note is an October 1 market comment that calls trading steady, with round dossiers stable and stones of two carats and larger holding firm. The report is now expected around October 9. The live index through October 2 keeps the shape D-Loupe has described for weeks, with the half-carat up 2.26 percent on the month against the one-carat essentially flat at 0.33 percent, so the firmness still sits in the smaller goods. One tension remains unresolved: IDEX’s September report put round goods below one carat down 4 to 6.5 percent, the opposite of that small-stone strength, and only the September RAPI can reconcile the two.

Gold has pared its monthly fall to about 6 percent from the 8 percent D-Loupe flagged on October 3, a partial bounce that eases the metal bill on the holiday build without affecting the price of the stone itself. Currencies stayed within the noise band this week, with the shekel up 1.04 percent and the rupee up 0.52 percent against the dollar, both below the 1.5 percent line that matters for quoting.

The September RAPI, due around October 9, is the single figure that settles whether the one-carat grade joins the small-stone firmness, and it resolves the two calls D-Loupe set in late September. After that, the reported United States plan to add a tariff on Indian gem and jewelry goods carries an October 18 marker that exporters are rushing to beat. On the calendar, JIS Fall runs in Miami from October 16 to 19, and the Dubai Diamond Conference falls on October 25 to 27.