The diamond market has been upended by the lab-grown craze. Some fear it may never recover.
Bloomberg/Getty Images The diamond market has been upended by the boom in lab-grown stones. Diamond prices have been on a steady decline, falling to record-low levels this year. Some analysts say the market may be permanently changed as consumer preferences split. Diamonds are losing their sparkle, and the lab-grown boom looks to be the chief culprit, source says. What's more, the upheaval might be permanent. Lab-grown diamonds — which are virtually indistinguishable from natural stones and are sold at a fraction of the price — had a paralyzing effect on the natural diamond market when they saw an unprecedented boom during the pandemic. Natural diamond sales tumbled — a decline that many analysts wrote off, figuring that man-made stones were a passing fad and that a recovery was coming. But what has actually transpired is a downturn jewelers say is unlike anything they have seen before, with the lab-grown craze seemingly splitting the natural diamond market in two halves: one ma...
