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by Will Purcell

The diamond and specialty minerals stocks box score on Friday was an upbeat 99-70-141 although the TSX Venture Exchange lost three points to 552. Rough diamond prices continued flat for the third consecutive week, according to Paul Zimnisky's global rough diamond price index. Oh, there were modest machinations -- the index dropped 0.1 point to 148.9 while tardy data prompted a 0.2-point increase for the previous week -- but the salient point is that prices appear flatlined following a 4.5-per-cent drop from mid-December to late January.

Oh, if that was the extent of the decline. Rough prices are down nearly 20 per cent over the past year and Mr. Zimnisky pegs current prices 28.3 per cent lower than in mid-February of 2022, when his index reached an all-time high of 207.3 points, at the apex of a nearly two-year-long surge following the COVID-induced collapse of 2020.

And so, the 2020s are starting to look like a replay of the 2010s, when a hearty two-year rebound followed a near collapse of the diamond sector during the Great Recession -- only to have prices stagnate for several years thereafter. (Recall that Mr. Zimnisky's index hit a springtime high just short of 200 points in 2011, but by early 2014 his index stood at 174 points. Prices zigzagged lower thereafter, so that by early 2019, the index stood at barely 150 points.)

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