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by Will Purcell

The diamond and specialty minerals stocks box score on Friday was an upbeat 100-60-150 as the TSX Venture Exchange leapt 13 points to 625. It was another week, another drop, for rough diamond prices according to Paul Zimnisky's global rough diamond price index. Mr. Zimnisky adjusted last week's chart 0.2-per-cent lower, based on late-to-arrive information, and then he cut it 0.3 per cent more based on the latest data for the current week.

And so, Mr. Zimnisky now has rough diamond prices down 21.7 per cent from their all-time high of early 2022 and down 11 per cent in the past three months alone. Gyrations aside, the chart suggests rough diamond prices have been essentially flat over the past decade -- just 2.8 per cent higher than they were in the summer of 2018 and a paltry 1.1 per cent above their level in the summer of 2013.

It was not always so. Remember that Mr. Zimnisky started his index in 2007 with a base value of 100, and it currently sits at 162 -- a 62-per-cent jump in the past 16 years. Of course, inflation has increased as well, by over 52 per cent in the United States. Still, prices arguably outstripped inflation by about 1 per cent annually. Unfortunately, nearly all the increase in rough diamond prices occurred early on, between 2007 and 2011, in which Mr. Zimnisky's index zigzagged to a quick 90-per-cent increase. Since then, prices have fallen.

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