Crashes and diamonds

A diamond bubble is forming, so slowly that people haven't noticed it yet. When they do, prepare for a crash. The crash will come when a dazzled public recognizes the precious jewel for what it is ­ a lump of carbon that can be built by the ton in laboratories. Very soon the predicted volume of future mass production will affect today's price, which is kept artificially high and stable by a cartel. Now is the time to go short, if only you could, argues Mark White

Price bubbles persist on the expectation that greater fools will come along. That’s why price manipulators find it profitable to start bubbles. However, bubbles inevitably burst when the supply of fools runs out.

Over the last few years, De Beers ­ the owners of the Central Selling Organization, which runs the diamond cartel ­ kept on buying as the Russians unloaded just about their entire diamond hoard. No-one knows whether the Russians, desperate to turn domestic assets into foreign cash, sold off their huge holding out of plain dumb luck, or if their massive sales rested on inside information about new mines or diamond-synthesis technologies.

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