News

It’s been another troubling week of developments on the COVID-19 front, with large parts of Queensland looking like they may join New South Wales in a multi-week lockdown, while variants of the disease are again causing problems in countries like Israel and America.

In financial markets volatility is again becoming a factor, with the Australian dollar for example beginning to suffer, while iron ore, our key commodity export here in Australia, now down about 20% from its all-time highs earlier in the year.

Last week also saw further evidence that inflationary pressures continue to build across the economy, with the latest data suggesting prices in Australia increased by almost 4% in the year to end-June.

Compare that to current bank interest rates which are close to 0%, and you can see why investors are increasingly looking for alternative ways to protect and grow wealth.

Pink diamonds will remain one of the key assets set to benefit as these trends play out in the years ahead, particularly as the costs caused by COVID-19, and the lockdowns designed to prevent its spread are only set to grow.

Lockdown costs will grow!

Given the length of the lockdown residents in New South Wales are currently going through, and the lockdowns seen in Queensland, South Australia and Victoria of late, there is no doubt we are going to see a massive hit to economic output in Australia.

read more

While the COVID-19 situation in Victoria, South Australia and Queensland appears to be improving, things are going from bad to worse in New South Wales, with lockdowns quite possibly set to be extend into September.

The social, economic and financial market impact of these lockdowns, which is already profound, will only grow more severe the longer it lasts, with more debt and more money printing absolute certainties at this point.

Financial market volatility is also set to increase, which is encouraging astute investors to look at the best ways to protect and grow wealth.

This week’s report reinforces why pink diamonds are a sensible investment opportunity, especially in the current investment climate, looking at some of the tailwinds that will support hard assets in the years to come, and the latest trends which highlight how strong the pink diamond market is today.

Investors to shift asset allocations in the years ahead

Earlier this month we came across an interesting report looking at the way institutional investors allocate client money, and how that is likely to change going forward.

These institutional investors would include the Australian superannuation funds managing your retirement money (unless you have a SMSF, which a lot of clients of ours either do, or are looking at getting).

The chart below comes from that report and shows the percentage of each portfolio that is invested in a range of asset classes today, from equities to commodities to cash, and what the percentages are expected to be three years from now.

In our view, the chart highlights an interesting trend that will support the case for hard assets, including pink diamonds, in the years to come.

read more

It’s hard to believe that yet another financial year has begun, with July almost over already.

Given the ongoing disruption in Australia due to COVID-19, many could be forgiven for thinking it’s Groundhog Day.

But while day to day life might seem like it’s on hold, financial markets, and the opportunities they offer investors, are as fast moving as ever.

Indeed, now is the perfect time to take stock of one’s portfolio, and make sure you are best positioned to maximise the profitable opportunities available in the investment marketplace today, while avoiding the multiple risks that are also on display.

The Australian Diamond Portfolio Annual Report

We are proud to use this week’s market update to launch our latest Australian Diamond Portfolio annual report.

As usual, our annual report is packed with a range of must-see information for any diamond investor, including:

• A review of financial markets and the global economy over the last year.
• Analysis of the latest developments in the Australian economy, including a look at share and property markets, superannuation funds and the Australian dollar.
• An update on the performance of pink diamonds, utilising pricing data Australian Diamond Portfolio has collated covering upwards of 10,000 pink diamonds.
• The closure of the Argyle Diamond Mine.
• The outlook for investment going forward, and why pink diamonds are one of the best investment opportunities available to investors today.

 

Download Report

 

As always, we hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s edition of “In the Loupe” and look forward to any questions or comments you may have.

Despite our best wishes, it looks like the disruptions caused by the spread of COVID-19 are here to stay. In New South Wales, we are now likely facing a prolonged period of lockdown, while other states are likely to keep borders shut and/or restrict the free movement of people until a much larger percentage of the population are vaccinated, which is months away at best.

While it might feel like we are stuck in Groundhog Day given the ongoing COVID-19 restrictions, and the blanket media coverage of every case diagnosed, the investment world, and the threats and opportunities it provides for our portfolio, is moving on.

To that end, we wanted to share a couple of insights this week which reinforce the risks posed by traditional asset classes, and why pink diamonds remain a great way to both protect and grow wealth in the decade ahead.

Two warning signs for investors

It’s hard to believe, but the stock market in the United States has now doubled since the first quarter of last year, when the original COVID-19 panic caused global markets to tank.

It’s one of the fastest and most impressive stock market rallies on record, with the year on year increase in the S&P 500 (the main stock index in the United States) to the end of June almost equalling the highest ever year on year move seen in 50 years.

Sadly though, this stock market rally hasn’t been fuelled by a genuine economic recovery or a huge increase in earnings or capital investment by the companies that make up the S&P 500.

read more

It goes without saying that the COVID-19 situation in Australia has gone from bad to worse to disastrous in the space of the last week. Lockdowns and restrictions on movements that were at first limited to 4 local government areas in New South Wales, where Australian Diamond Portfolio is headquartered, have quickly spread up, down and across the nation.

As I write this note on Tuesday 29 June, nearly the entire country is affected in some way, with Queensland, Perth, New South Wales and the Northern Territory all in various states of lockdown, whilst there are restrictions in place in South Australia and Victoria.

The rather sad image below sums it all up!

Whilst we all wish this scenario wasn’t unfolding, this week has smashed once and for all the idea that 2021 would see a return to normal, with the loss of personal freedoms, and the economic dislocation caused by COVID-19 now likely to be a factor well into next year.

Indeed, this time it could be worse, at least in an economic sense, with most of the emergency stimulus that was deployed last year to keep the economy going having now ceased, with nothing as yet to take its place.

All this uncertainty will no doubt have investors reassessing their portfolios, with a greater focus on wealth preservation.

Whilst pink diamonds have a well-deserved reputation as a safe haven asset – they offer far more than that to astute investors wanting to build a portfolio of profitable assets.

We explore in more detail below.

read more

It seems that despite our strongest hopes, Australia will be grappling with COVID-19, and the disruption it can cause for a while longer, with the last week seeing cases of the disease spreading along the Eastern seaboard, and restrictions and mask mandates being brought back into our home state of NSW.

Meanwhile, financial markets are seeing heightened volatility, from equities to currency markets (the Australian dollar fell almost 5% last week), to cryptocurrencies and even precious metals.

By comparison, the pink diamond market remains a sea of tranquillity, with prices continuing to steadily increase, both due to the limited supply, and the uptick in demand we continue to see, which in many ways dates back to the closure of The Argyle Diamond Mine in last 2020.

Pink diamonds themselves have also been in the news again over the last week, with Australian Diamond Portfolio featuring heavily in an ABC News article on the investment opportunities this truly scarce asset class offers.

We explore in more detail below.

read more

It’s been another interesting week in financial markets, with a short-term spike in cryptocurrencies, a fall in precious metal prices, and a small decline in the value of the Australian dollar.

Whilst we regularly report on the short-term gyrations in markets, and think they are important to follow, it is even more important to contextualise the day to day moves within a bigger picture framework.

For ultimately, it’s the bigger picture that should determine how we invest, which asset classes to put our money into, and which ones to avoid.

And in the last week, one of the key long-term trends that we think will support pink diamonds, the existence of higher inflation, came to the fore.

We explore in detail below.

read more

Whilst it’s been a quiet week in terms of pink diamond specific news, there has been no shortage of activity in all financial markets, from disappointing job results in the United States, to continued volatility in cryptocurrency markets.

In this update, we wanted to share with you some insights from financial news media that we’ve consumed in recent weeks, with some important takeaways for actual and prospective clients of Australian Diamond Portfolio.

This media is very relevant to the investment case for pink diamonds in the decade ahead, and deals with a range of topics, from the potential for a major stock market crash, to a continued bull market run in commodities, and the almost certainty of more money printing, or Quantitative Easing (QE) as it’s called by central banks, including here in Australia.

We explore in more detail below.

read more

It’s hard to believe that we are almost half way through 2021.

At times, it seems like 2020 never really ended, with the first five months of this year characterised by a seeming start-stop-start-stop approach to reopening the global economy, with vaccination rollouts competing with continued COVID-19 outbreaks around the world.

Australia, despite our “success” (or should we say luck) in limiting the spread of COVID-19, is well and truly caught up in this trend, with Victoria entering yet another lockdown this week.

Meanwhile, our chances of meaningfully opening our borders to international visitors continue to be hampered by our incredibly slow vaccination rollout, which lags behind almost all developed market countries, with some analysts now expecting we won’t be opening the borders until mid to late 2022 at this stage.

Whilst stock markets have by and large looked through the continued disruption caused by COVID-19, there is no doubting there will be a price to pay at some stage.

Astute investors are preparing for this already, which is one of the factors propelling pink diamond demand, and pink diamond prices, higher in 2021.

read more

It’s been another interesting week in financial markets, with inflationary threats continuing to build, commodity prices getting crunched, and cryptocurrencies collapsing, with many having now dropped by close to or in some cases more than 50% in the last month.

Whilst all those factors support the investment case for pink diamonds, our latest market update rightly focuses on the incredibly exciting news that Rio Tinto have released the very last Argyle Pink Diamond Tender.

Below, we cover news about the Tender, and what the impact of this Tender, and the closure of the Argyle Diamond Mine more broadly means for pink diamonds, and the investment opportunity they offer.

read more