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by Will Purcell

The diamond and specialty minerals stocks box score on Friday was a positive 96-75-139 as the TSX Venture Exchange rose one point to 558. Rough diamond prices edged lower again this week, dipping 0.1 point to 155.7 according to Paul Zimnisky's global rough diamond price index. The index is now 24.9 per cent below its all-time high of 207.2, set in mid-February of 2022. Worse, rough prices are essentially unchanged from where they languished through most of the 2010s -- a seven-year stretch when Mr. Zimnisky never had prices far from the 155-point mark.

Indeed, easily worried diamond investors had best shun the usual purveyors of news about the rough market. Earlier this month, Fortune Media headlined its latest gloom and doom by noting "diamond demand is falling so fast -- courtesy of lab-grown stones -- [that] De Beers is cutting some prices by more than 40 per cent." The Fortune article notes that growing numbers of American couples are choosing engagement rings made from synthetic diamonds, not mined gems.

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