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by Will Purcell

The diamond and specialty minerals stocks box score on Friday was an upbeat 106-67-137 as the TSX Venture Exchange rose five points to 533. Oh, here we go again. Rough diamond prices took another hit according to Paul Zimnisky's global rough diamond price index, which fell another 0.5 per cent this week to 153.5 points. This puts it 25.9 per cent below the all-time high of 207.2 points set in early 2022. Indeed, rough prices are now nearly 2 per cent lower than in the fall of 2013 -- the early stages of an eight-year stretch of stagnation.

In presenting his one-year chart, Mr. Zimnisky helpfully offers a flat "trend line" covering the first six months of the curve, a period during which his index remained within a few points of the 182-point mark. That stagnation gave way to a sharp drop thereafter, but Mr. Zimnisky has yet to superimpose a new trend line, perhaps because it would trace a trajectory more in keeping with a "Drop of Doom" carnival ride. Indeed, this abrupt drop is the key reason that diamond miners trade at fire sale prices (Lucara Diamond Corp. (LUC) rose one-half cent to 37 cents on 97,000 shares -- a 90-per-cent drop in the past seven years.)

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