Diamond News Archives

But there may be more than meets the eye among those whose incomes rank in the top third of households. While the majority of these respondents expressed concern over the tariffs, what they’re reading, hearing and seeing may be dampening their outlooks even further. As things stand, it’s as if January never happened, a month in which confidence was so high, the “news heard” among high income earners hit a 20-year high. By the beginning of July, “news heard” had slid to minus 18, the lowest in two years. The six-month, 79-point swing is so severe it rivals August 2011, when the euro crisis shook world markets, Standard & Poor’s stripped the U.S. of its AAA credit rating, and households were rattled by the debt ceiling debacle....

(IDEX Online) – The Jewelers Vigilance Committee (JVC) said it is working on reviewing the revised Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Guides for the Jewelry, Precious Metals, and Pewter Industries Guides and will release educational materials for industry members on the Guides soon. <?xml:namespace prefix = "o" ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /?>

JVC will also be hosting webinars on the Guides, the first of which will be held on August 8.

The FTC released the revised Guides on July 24. They address claims for precious metal, pewter, diamond, gemstone, pearl, and other industry products. The Guides explain how to avoid making deceptive claims and, for certain products, when disclosures should be made to avoid unfair or deceptive practices.

The revised Guides come after a six-year process that involved comments and requests for opinions submitted by various trade organizations and industry members, the JVC said. The revised Guides address issues including claims about man-made gemstone products, pearl treatment disclosures, products containing more than one precious metal, and more.

JVC is dedicated to educating the industry on the laws and regulations that impact all levels of the jewelry trade and will be posting updates at jvclegal.org....

LONDON, July 26 (Reuters) – Anglo American unit De Beers expects its purchase of Canada's Peregrine Diamonds, its first upstream diamond acquisition since 2000, to be completed in a month to six weeks' time. Only then can it really start sizing up the asset.

Peregrine is the sole owner of the Chidliak project on Baffin Island in northeastern Canada. While preliminary assessments of Chidliak's mineral reserves have been done, the facility's overall ouput potential is unproven.

De Beers CEO Bruce Cleaver said in an interview on Thursday it could take "a few years to prove the resource", but work would begin on doing so once the 107 million Canadian dollars ($82 million) transaction is completed by around September.

The world's largest diamond producer by value said the acquisition, announced last week, underlined its commitment to natural diamonds even after it broke with tradition earlier this year with a plan to sell synthetic gems for jewellery.

Demand for natural diamonds, which last year made up some 16 percent of Anglo American's underlying EBITDA, is listed in the results statement as one of the group's "principal risks and uncertainties".

The company's last acquisition of an upstream diamond asset was in 2000 when it bought Winspear Diamonds, which owned Snap Lake. De Beers flooded Snap Lake in Canada's Arctic in early 2017 after failing to find a buyer for the mine that proved to be unprofitable.

Anglo American CEO Mark Cutifani said a leaner, reformed company is focused on efficiency and its deals so far this year, including Peregrine, will add value to the company.

In first-half results announced on Thursday, diamond EBITDA lagged the group's wider performance....

Home appliance manufacturer Whirlpool^[1], which once favored stricter trade controls for its own industry, saw its own shares plummet 14 percent Tuesday after executives blamed rising aluminum and steel costs for lackluster earnings.

"Global steel cost has risen substantially and, particularly in the U.S., they have reached unexplainable levels," Whirlpool chief executive Marc Bitzer told shareholders during the company’s conference call.

Most of the discussions are critical, but there are a few companies seeing benefits.

Nucor, which produces and sells a variety of steel products in the United States and internationally, applauded the recent regulatory efforts.

“The tariffs send a clear message that the U.S. is done asking nicely for compliance with the rules of trade,” said Nucor Chairman and CEO John Ferriola. “The U.S. steel market is also benefiting from a reduction in unfairly traded imports entering our country as a result of years of successful trade cases, and the broad-based tariffs imposed on the Section 232. Imports are down more than 7 percent through the first half of 2018. With all tariffs going into effect in June, we expect this trend to continue.”

Below are some key quotes by company executives from major S&P 500 members about tariffs on these calls, according to FactSet transcripts....

References

1. ^{^} Whirlpool (www.cnbc.com)