De Beers just implemented huge price cuts on raw diamonds of up to 10% because prices in the market were falling so fast and they wanted to implement a price floor. There are a lot of things this could mean, but the narrative that makes the most sense to me is the middle, upper middle, and lower upper classes are cutting back on luxuries because they're being squeezed by inflation. Some people claim that sanctions on Russian diamonds are causing prices to drop, but that's the opposite of the reaction you'd expect. Russian sanctions would be more likely to raise prices outside of Russia, since a major source of diamonds would be eliminated. Another potential problem people cite is that lab grown diamonds are becoming more accepted, but there's no reason why that would have happened just recently to this extent unless something else such as economic pressures was causing people to rethink the natural diamond market. DeBeers has also reduced prices for its lab-grown diamonds by nearly 40%