February 2026

February was genuinely significant. New listings across the retailers I track came in at 12.4 million for the month, up 372% on January's 2.6 million. Active inventory nearly doubled, from 10.2 million stones to 21 million. Total listed value crossed $76 billion. These aren't rounding errors or data artefacts. This was a structural expansion in market supply, and it happened fast.

The concentration story adds context. The top five retailers by new listings accounted for 45.2% of all new supply, meaning a handful of names did most of the listing. Cross-retailer overlap jumped from 34.3% in January to 44.5%, which tells you the same stones are appearing across more storefronts than they were a month ago. That's broadly consistent with a supplier-level restocking push being distributed widely. And the median multi-retailer price spread widened sharply, from 64% to 89%, so buyers shopping the same stone across multiple retailers are seeing wider price gaps than they were. That spread number is worth paying attention to.

The origin split tells two different stories. Natural diamond median prices rose 19.5% to $1,606, with per-carat prices up a more modest 5.3% to $2,512. Lab-grown went the other way: median price fell 22.5% to $987, and per-carat dropped a steep 45% to $604. Lab-grown still holds just under 60% of active inventory by count, barely changed from January's 60.2%. But the price compression is real and accelerating. When new lab-grown listings are flooding in at more than four times January's pace and per-carat pricing is down nearly half, the value equation for budget-conscious buyers has shifted considerably, though it does raise the question of whether that floor holds through March.

Shape pricing had notable dispersion. Asscher took the hardest hit, down 30.6% to a median of $1,615, with cushion not far behind at down 22.6% to $1,478. Trillion cut was the sole mover to the upside, gaining 19.2% to reach $1,230, though with only 7,460 new listings, that move reflects a thin slice of the market and shouldn't be overread. Round remained the dominant shape by volume at 40.7% of all new listings, with a median new listing price of $1,021. Oval and emerald sat close together in the mid-$1,170 range. Median carat size across active inventory held flat at 1.21ct.

The notable stones this month included a 70.83ct lab-grown emerald cut listed at $316,315, and two listings for the same 60.12ct natural heart shape at D/VVS1, one priced near $9.3 million and the other at $9.7 million. That gap on what appears to be the same stone is a clean illustration of the spread widening story. At the top of the price range, a 7.01ct natural emerald cut carried a listed price of $191.7 million, which is an outlier by any measure and likely reflects the wholesale or consignment listing behaviour that occasionally surfaces in aggregated data.

Going into March, the spread data is what I'll be watching most closely. An 89% median spread across retailers tracking the same stone is unusually wide, and it tends to either compress as pricing normalises or widen further as liquidity pressures build on slower-moving inventory. Lab-grown per-carat pricing sitting at $604 against a natural comparison of $2,512 is a ratio that buyers will notice. If that gap remains this visible, it may pull more volume toward lab-grown even as natural median prices firm. The February surge in supply makes the March clearance rate the number that matters.

Lucy Market Index

Ten numbers I record every snapshot.

Versus January 2026

Biggest shape movers

How the Lucy Market Index has moved

By origin

Top shapes by new listings

Notable stones

Each stone links to its full Carat Hunter listing.