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  3. "Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without one," goes a Chinese proverb. That’s increasingly the mindset for invest

"Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without one," goes a Chinese proverb. That’s increasingly the mindset for invest

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问题     "Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without one," goes a Chinese proverb.
    That’s increasingly the mindset for investors—especially wealthier ones—seeking hard assets in the face of the ongoing market turmoil.【R1】______
    In fact, diamonds actually outperformed other commodities in 2010, according to Saul Singer, a partner at the alternative assets investment firm Fusion Alternatives, which specializes in diamond investments. Says Singer:
    "Many might remember 2010 as the year global commodity prices continued to surge. The Dow Jones-UBS Commodity Index ended the year up 36 percent. Strong gains were experienced across all major commodity markets with the industrial metals market leading the charge.【R2】______"
    The U. S. consumer price index for jewelry(a CPI for jewelry)jumped by 11.9% on a year-to-year basis in July to a record of 176.46. That’s the seventh-straight month that the index climbed above the 170 level.
    【R3】______ Not surprisingly, higher diamond prices and increased demand have boosted global diamond stocks as well. "We’ve seen much more demand than we can supply, especially for very expensive diamonds, which is where we operate. We expect a pause in the rise in diamond prices. It is unlikely that prices will continue rushing ahead as they’ve done in the past year. But then it will get back in its upward phase." noted Gem Diamonds Ltd. Chief Executive Officer Clifford Elphick in an interview with Bloomberg Friday.
    The higher prices haven’t stopped the super-rich from trying to grab as many high-quality diamonds as they can. In an interview with CNBC Friday, Henri Barguirdjian, CEO of luxury jewelry Graff Holdings, said that burgeoning interest in diamonds as an investment is a relatively new phenomenon:
    【R4】______These people never considered diamonds as an investment, but as something very beautiful and nice to own, it made their wife happy and it’s gorgeous to look at but they always neglected the financial aspect of the transaction. And now they see what has happened with the price of diamonds and they realize it is not so much a silly idea.
    【R5】______
    Of course, Barguirdjian has a vested interest in the idea of diamonds as an asset class and not just as pretty baubles. In his comments, he perhaps inadvertently hinted at the risks of this largely untested investment idea—and the reason that ordinary investors should probably tread carefully there, if at all. "Financial institutions are seriously studying the diamond market," he said. "We have been getting lots of calls by people who are doing reports on this and they want charts and price history to formulate their research. "
[A]This is something that has never happened before. We are being approached by money managers of very wealthy clients, or the wealthy clients themselves, all considering investing a small percentage of their portfolio in diamonds.
[B]The investment parameter of diamonds is their high value per unit weight, which makes them easy to store and transport. A high quality diamond weighing as little as 2 or 3 grams could be worth as much as 100 kilos of gold. This extremely condensed value and portability does bestow diamonds as a form of emergency funding.
[C]Investment diamonds gained 20 percent in 2010, however on a risk-adjusted basis, investment diamonds outperformed even the surging commodities market.
[D]The diamond company De Beers expends marketing efforts to encourage sales of diamond sizes and qualities which are being produced in relatively large quantities. They have also been known to take steps to discourage investment, primarily because they perceive that bubble prices which are followed by sharp falls are bad for long term consumer confidence in diamonds as a long-term store of value.
[E]With gold climbing to record highs in the past year—it topped $ 1,800 per ounce this week—many investors have been looking to diamonds as a viable alternative.
[F]De Beers, one of the world’s biggest diamond companies, says that while the increase of diamond prices was limited to 7% in the U. S. last year, spikes in China(26%)and India(37%)were much bigger and have continued in 2011.
[G]He added that some Forbes 400 types are investing up to $100 million in the diamond market these days, mostly favoring "finished" diamonds over rough ones. He says that affluent investors are starting to view diamonds as a great inflation hedge and as a low-maintenance investment that is traded all over the world.
【R1】
选项
答案E
解析 本文前两段讲的是投资者已经将硬资产(即贵重金属及宝石)作为投资的选择之一，而第三段表明20lO年钻石在投资价值方面远远超过其他的商品。[E]提到随着贵重金属黄金的价格持续走高，投资者将钻石作为其投资的选择。此句作为上下段的过渡，承上启下地表明钻石日益受到投资者追捧的原因，因此[E]为正确选项。
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