Sarin

Diamonds / Sarin: more negative news flow on the diamond industry. Diamond Trading Company, the De Beers subsidiary that distributes rough diamonds notes China's demand for diamonds is growing far more slowly this year, making it the latest co to acknowledge that meteoric growth rates in the sales of luxury goods are petering out in China. China became the world's 2nd-largest diamond consumer last year, buying up 10% of global output, ranked behind only the US, which buys 38% of the world's diamonds. Last year, China demand grew over 20%, while expectations place growth at around 10% this yr. The growing number of luxury-goods companies/ brands that have warned about slowing growth in China this year incl Daimler’s Mercedes-Benz and Porsche divisions, and fashion brand Burberry. Separately, internet news has been talking about Russia having last wkend, declassified the existence of possibly the richest diamond field in existence, located in the depths of of a 62mile diameter asteroid crater known as Popigai Astroblem in Siberia, with potentially “trillions of karats” of impact diamonds. Though impact diamonds are more suited for industrial uses given their extreme hardness, the sheer quantity could be enough to have a serious downward impact on global diamond prices. Nevertheless, the numbers claimed are so fantastic that the news has no doubt attracted its fair share of skeptics. http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/technology-blog/russian-asteroid-crater-revealed-filled-over-1-quadrillion-013025163.html Sarin is -1% at $1.01.