De Beers Sale Nears as Gold Prices Rise
Gold clawed its way back over $4,000, but only after its worst week since spring. Spot settled Friday, July 17, near $3,985 an ounce, down roughly 3% on the week and its weakest showing since June. By Monday the metal had pushed back above $4,000, trading around $4,019, and it held near $4,022 into Tuesday morning. That is not a rally. It is a market coiling ahead of next week’s Federal Reserve decision, and nearly every dealer is sitting on their hands until Wednesday.
Giant mining deal nears completion
The biggest structural story of the week came out of Gaborone and London. Anglo American named the Global Diamond Consortium, led by former De Beers chief executive Gareth Penny, as its preferred bidder for an 85% stake in De Beers. Botswana, which owns the other 15% and mines roughly 70% of the company’s rough, said it is weighing options for what it called the optimal structure, and it has signaled it wants a larger seat at the table. Angola and Namibia are both angling for stakes of their own, which is why the government in Gaborone is not rubber-stamping anything yet.
Related: Central Banks Buy Record Gold Reserves
This lands on top of a punishing stretch for the miner. The July sight brought the deepest official price cuts in De Beers’ history, moving a book that had run 5% to 50% above secondary levels back to something close to market. The sightholder roster was slashed from about 70 buyers to between 45 and 50. And the company is idling its Venetia mine in South Africa for two years, a decision that put more than 1,100 jobs at risk, to conserve cash. Botswana mines the bulk of that rough through the Debswana joint venture, which is why Gaborone has leverage and is using it.
A completed sale, if Botswana signs off, could close by the fourth quarter of 2026. What new ownership does to rough pricing discipline is the question the trade cannot answer yet, because a consortium answerable to producer governments carries very different incentives than a London mining major managing a portfolio. Those governments have every reason to defend prices to protect national revenue, but they also face political pressure to keep mines and jobs running, and those two goals pull in opposite directions.
Watch exports climb despite tariff damage
Watches handed the trade its one clean piece of good news. The Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry reported June exports of CHF 2.4 billion, up 11.2% year over year, with volumes up 11.7% to 1.3 million pieces. The United States led the major markets at plus 12.7% to CHF 349 million, and France posted a startling plus 103.5% to CHF 250 million against a soft comparison. Britain rose 12.2% to CHF 175 million and Japan added 8.8% to CHF 169 million. The one soft spot was the CHF 500 to 3,000 band, down 4.7%, while everything above CHF 3,000 climbed 14.2%.
Related: Swiss Exports Surge 11.2 Percent in June
The catch is that the first half is still down 0.7% at CHF 12.8 billion, so one strong month does not undo the tariff-driven damage from the spring. On the secondary side, the majors keep tightening their grip: Patek Philippe holds a value-retention score of 15.4% against Rolex at 9.8%, with the Nautilus up 17.2% year over year. Auctions confirmed the top of the market is intact, with Phillips booking $507 million in first-half sales at a 90% sell-through by lot.
Natural diamonds finally adjust to market rates
On the diamond side, the De Beers cut is finally doing something the trade has wanted for years: dragging list prices back toward what stones actually change hands for. The company’s book had been running anywhere from 5% to 50% above secondary levels depending on the category, and it now sits close to the open market. At the same time, the Rapaport index for smaller natural goods is recovering, with the 0.30-carat category up 4.2% in June, its best month in a while, as inventory reductions support the correction.
Related: Swiss Rebounds 9.6% as Gold Holds $4,530
Lab-grown, for its part, has found a retail floor near $725 for a well-cut one-carat round after a 26% wholesale drop through 2025, with most comparable goods listed between $660 and $810. That stability matters as much as the price itself, because it turns lab-grown from a moving target into a predictable, low-margin commodity line retailers can plan around. Natural list prices for small stones, meanwhile, have now ticked up for the first time in more than four years. Add Richemont’s jewelry division, which posted a 21% jump to EUR 4.73 billion in the June quarter on 25% US growth, and the read is clear: branded and small-stone natural demand is healthy while the rough supply chain resets underneath it.
Everything routes through next Wednesday. If the Fed holds and signals patience, gold has room to test $4,100 again and the watch and diamond recovery inherits a friendlier backdrop. If the oil-inflation read forces a hike, the metals complex and the luxury tape both take another leg lower. That single decision touches every corner of this trade, from the scrap price a jeweler quotes at the counter to the dollar cost of a Swiss import, which is why nobody with inventory to move is committing size before it lands.
