Diamond News Archives

“At the end fiat money returns to its inner value—zero.”  – Voltaire

 “Within our mandate, the ECB is ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro. And believe me, it will be enough.” – Mario Draghi July 26, 2012

On July 26, 2012, European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi essentially guaranteed the ECB would not allow the markets to cripple the Euro region. This shot across the bow finally remedied the instability caused by the sovereign debt crisis. The markets quickly reversed the damaging trends and uncertainty that had plagued the Euro-zone for months.

Draghi’s statement essentially boiled down to a promise that the ECB would print unlimited amounts of money to stop the “harmful” will of investors.

Fiat currency, be it dollars, euros, yen, or any other major currency today, are backed by confidence in the government, its ability to tax and the status of its economy. Importantly, however, it is also largely based on the trust and confidence in the central bank that issues those notes. If Draghi did not have the market’s trust and confidence, his statement would have been ignored, and there is no telling what might have happened to Greece or the Euro for that matter.

In September 2016, the Bank of Japan (BOJ) introduced Quantitative and Qualitative Easing (QQE) with Yield Curve Control. The new policy framework aimed to strengthen the effects of monetary easing by controlling short-term and long-term interest rates through market operations. The announcement also introduced an “inflation overshooting commitment” with the BOJ committed to expanding the monetary base until the year-over-year inflation rate “exceeds and remains above the 2 percent target in a stable manner.”...

2018-08-07 9am EDT  |  #gold #China #CNY

At the risk of alienating all my readers who view gold as a barbarous relic, I am chancing one more post to expand on my ideas regarding the correlation between gold and the Chinese currency.

Although some readers got a chuckle out of my article Gold: Come’on - Admit it - You want to own it^[1], there was also a bunch of pushback on the idea that the Chinese were pegging the price of gold in CNY.

“Why would they do that?”

“To what end?”

And I guess I purposely left out the details, instead I choose to focus on the correlations and leave it to readers to draw their own conclusions.

And before I give you my theories as to the reasons behind the relationship, let’s have a look at how the correlation has fared since I wrote about it last.

Still trading on top of one another. In fact, it’s almost tick for tick.

Speaking of tick for tick, the great twitter account of @TickByTick_Team^[2] created a terrific chart that demonstrated the collapse in the volatility of gold priced in CNY. I have recreated using the 90-day historical volatility, but it doesn’t matter which time frame you use - the end result is that gold priced in CNY has become a lot less volatile.

I am sympathetic to the idea that China would never bother to peg the price of gold. Pegging implies that you would be willing to both buy and sell it to keep it at a certain level. I don’t believe that China has any interest in selling even the tiniest little bit...

Pandora cut expected revenue in 2018 from 7 to 10 per cent to 4 to 7 percent.

The stock plummeted 22% to DKK452 (US$70.30).

Pandora (PNDORA.CO), which is headquartered in Denmark and employs 23,500 people worldwide, gave no reason for the change.

The EBITDA margin was also cut from 35 per cent to 32 per cent.

Earlier this month, the company laid off 397 workers. Pandora says it still plans to add 250 new outlets, half to operate in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Pandora also said its capital allocation plans are unchanged.

In 2017, PANDORA’s total revenue was DKK 22.8 billion (US$3.55 billion).

Creative Commons image courtesy of Jonas Bengtsson

The post Large diamond retailer drops 22% after cutting guidance appeared first on MINING.com....

(IDEX Online) – MVI Marketing LLC (MVI) reports that respondents in a study rated Tiffany, Pandora, Swarovski as the top jewelry brands they own or are most likely purchase.<?xml:namespace prefix = "o" ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /?>

"In a new jewelry category, over 13% of respondents said they are very likely to purchase lab grown diamonds, over 43% said maybe they would purchase lab grown diamonds but don't know much about them, and 21% said they would probably purchase lab grown diamonds as they are hearing more about them," MVI said.

The survey was the latest in a series of quantitative research studies with Millennial Self Purchasing Females (SPFs) to better understand the opportunity with this unique growth demographic for luxury goods. The study focused on three core product segments: jewelry, shoes and hotels.

"The results reinforce reasons for optimism for luxury brands seeking an entry level point with millennial consumers. In general respondents to this study identified the top three motivators of why they purchase for themselves as: so they can get exactly what they want; to celebrate a milestone; and just because. Nearly 91% indicated they research a brand before buying.

MVI’s President Liz Chatelain said, "You can see all the signs of a demographic segment that will be spending for themselves, and for gifts, in increasing numbers and escalating price points. “Luxury brands like Tiffany, Marriott [hotels] and Jimmy Choo [shoes] are already seeing strong penetration based on their recent video content marketing efforts and others seeking an answer to millennial consuming puzzle should become more aggressive with their content marketing to young Self Purchasing Females.”

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