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by Will Purcell

The diamond and specialty minerals stocks box score for Wednesday was a discouraging but common 36-60-175. The TSX Venture Exchange fell six points to 781 while polished diamond prices inched upward. Chuck Fipke's diamond explorer Metalex Ventures Ltd. (MTX) fell one-half cent to 3.5 cents on 3.45 million shares. Mr. Fipke, a co-discoverer of Ekati, Canada's first diamond mine, still has a loyal legion of supporters who must be hurting financially, as Metalex has lost 99.95 per cent of its value since 2002. The company plans a 10,000-tonne bulk sample of its U2 kimberlite in Northern Ontario but it may have to cover the multimillion-dollar cost on its own, as Dundee Corp. (DC.A: $15.99) recently quit a $51-million option deal on the project. Cristiano Melcher's MBAC Fertilizer Corp. (MBC) gained two cents to 13.5 cents on 4.76 million shares. MBAC began October at 15 cents, subsequently dipped to five cents, rallied to 18 cents and retreated to 8.5 cents before today's increase. The market's vacillation is directly related to the company's financial woes and an apparently successful renegotiation of its mounting debt.

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