The Fancy Color Diamond Index rose by a marginal 0.2% during the first quarter of 2017, indicating pricing stability across most fancy colour diamond categories, the Fancy Color Research Foundation (FCRF) said in a statement yesterday.

While prices of yellow and pink fancy colour diamonds remained largely unchanged, prices of blue fancy colour diamonds rose by 1.9% during this period, FCRF reported. It added that fancy intense and fancy vivid blue diamonds across all carat sizes were the strongest performing price categories during Q1 2017.

When compared to Q1 2016, the Fancy Color Diamond Index is up 0.7% with blue fancy and pink fancy up 5.7% and 0.8%, respectively, and yellow fancy down 2.5%. As in Q4 2016, across all colour segments fancy intense and fancy vivid demonstrated robust price increases, which were offset to some extent by price declines of colour diamonds in the “fancy” category.

FCRF Advisory Board chairman Eden Rachminov said, “Highly coveted fancy intense and vivid blues are challenging to find in the market, while interest and demand for these categories continue to grow.”

He added that the trend is likely to continue well into 2017, “as owners react to supply shortages with price hikes”.

The Fancy Color Diamond Index published by the non-profit FCRF, is based on pricing data for yellow, pink and blue fancy color diamonds in three key global trading centers – Hong Kong, New York and Tel Aviv.