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by Will Purcell

The diamond and specialty minerals stocks box score on Friday was a 78-78-154 draw as the TSX Venture Exchange rose three points to 537. After five weeks of modest gains that came on the heels of a sharp 20-month decline, Paul Zimnisky's global rough diamond price index fell for the second week in a row. The 0.5-point drop, when added to a 0.2-point upward nudge because of late-to-arrive data, resulted in Mr. Zimnisky pegging his index at 152.6 points, a 0.3-per-cent drop over the past week.

Accordingly, Mr. Zimnisky now has rough diamond prices back in the red at all his comparison points from one week to a full year, although his chart is still 0.2 per cent higher than the 152.3 points at which it stood in mid-October. That minor hillock on an otherwise mountainous chart -- or cavernous, more accurately -- began when the two-month voluntary moratorium on Indian diamond purchases began.

With that pause coming to an end, renewed buying ahead of the now imminent holiday season may help push prices higher. Or not, as many a diamond miner held back some production or cancelled entire sales during the moratorium. And so, rough prices are poised to start 2024 with Mr. Zimnisky's index meandering in the low 150s, roughly where it spent most of the 2010s. Then, diamond miners frequently bemoaned the stagnant prices paid for their production, but now they must also contend with wages and operating costs about 30 per cent higher than before.

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