How to play recovery in diamond mkt

Buy Alrosa

  • Russian miner sold 7.1 million carats in fourth quarter
  • In third quarter, miner sold only 42% of diamonds producted

 

Gems sales rose to 7.1 million carats in October through December, the miner said on its website on Thursday. This compares with 4.9 million carats of sales in the third quarter, when Alrosa had to stockpile 58 percent of its output because of low demand and prices.

The diamond prices plunged 18 percent last year, the most since 2008. De Beers and Alrosa had to cut output and sales to let the market recover.

 Alrosa’s output declined 26 percent to 8.61 million carats in the fourth quarter compared with the previous three months, the miner said on Thursday. Full-year production rose to 38.3 million carats in 2015, while sales were only 30 million carats, the company said.

“The diamond industry has begun a recovery,” with De Beers’ sales also rebounding, Oleg Petropavlovskiy, an analyst at BCS Global Markets, said in a note on Tuesday. “We believe that the duopoly worked very well in the second half” with large supply cuts, and now sales will rebound he said. BCS added Alrosa to its list of most preferred shares.

based on Bloomberg article published 1/28/16

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