Rapaport's October 29 Market Comment Reviews Polished Demand Across Sizes and Regions

Executive Summary

Rapaport's October 29 market comment reviews current conditions across the main polished categories and trading hubs as the industry moves into the holiday period. It is useful context for anyone setting quotes or managing inventory over the coming weeks. See the source for the category-level detail.

Industry Impact

A late-October trading snapshot carries more weight than most because it lands against the holiday restock deadline, when retailers commit the orders that set midstream workloads into the new year. D-Loupe values these weekly comments less for any single price move than for where demand is concentrating by size and shape, since that mix, not an index level, determines which goods a manufacturer can finance and turn. Diverging behavior between well-cut and poorly proportioned stones of the same weight is the recurring signal here. Liquidity, not grade alone, increasingly decides which parcels move and which sit on the shelf.

Next Steps

1. Sort your polished stock by size band and cut quality, not by average price, before quoting this week.
2. Flag well-made stones in the sizes buyers are chasing and hold firmer on those.
3. Move illiquid, poorly proportioned goods now rather than into January.
4. Confirm holiday shipping and memo deadlines with U.S. accounts.
5. Keep buying discipline against building inventory rather than chasing volume.