Word: marketed
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...million to spare? Then you could meet Liz Taylor's asking price for a 69.42-carat, pear-shaped diamond that Richard Burton paid less than half as much to buy for her nine years ago. That is one of the more modest price increases in a market that has gone berserk, especially at the wholesale level. Uncut stones, particularly those less than one carat, have in many cases doubled in price just in the past 18 months...
Supplies of new stones on the market are down, in part because mining in Angola has not recovered from a civil war that ended in 1976. More important, speculators round the world have concluded that diamonds are a good hedge against inflation, currency weakness and political uncertainty. In the diamond centers of Antwerp, New York City, Bombay and especially Tel Aviv, industry middlemen have been paying price premiums up to 100% to buy and hoard uncut stones. Banks have been buying diamonds for customers' portfolios, instead of stocks. "Some people have bought kilos' worth of diamonds," says Antwerp...
Last week De Beers, South Africa-based kingpin of the diamond cartel and central selling agent for most diamond-producing countries, acted to stabilize the market-by making a big price increase. At its regular sale to selected buyers, De Beers posted a 40% price surcharge. One motive was to cut diamond-producing countries in on the profits that speculators have been reaping. De Beers also hoped to stop the hoarding; at the new level, speculators might find prices that tempt them enough to sell some of their stashed-away stones to cutters who need gems. And if supplies reaching...
Anyone concluding from that logic that the diamond market is a topsy-turvy affair best left to pros would be dead right. An uninitiated individual investor has to buy diamonds at retail, paying huge markups, but he can only sell his stones at wholesale levels. So the price has to rise considerably for the ordinary investor to break even. Meanwhile, he has cash tied up in an asset that pays no dividends or interest...
...prize property. One of the world's highest-cost copper producers, Kennecott thrives only when prices of its metal are handsome. Last year profits were a pittance of $300,000 on sales of $977 million. Copper inventories of more than 2 million tons are now overhanging the market, forcing the U.S. spot price down to about 620 per lb., below Kennecott's average cost. Some analysts, however, believe that copper might go as high as $1 per lb. by the end of 1979, as demand catches up with supply. But, if the stock market is any indicator...