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by Will Purcell

The diamond and specialty minerals stocks box score on Friday was a positive 89-69-152 as the TSX Venture Exchange added one point to 550. There is a glimmer of hope if not optimism in the latest update of Paul Zimnisky's global rough diamond price index. First, Mr. Zimnisky nudged last week's fix 0.3 point higher to 148.9 thanks to late-to-arrive data, and then the new information this week tacked on another 0.8 point so that the index now stands at 149.7 points, a 0.6-per-cent increase on the week and a 0.75-per-cent improvement over where we thought the index was at a week ago.

And so, while the chart still looks flattish compared with the gentle upward slope evident through the two-month-long voluntary moratorium on rough imports imposed by the Indian market -- and a resulting voluntary moratorium on rough sales anywhere by some major miners -- the latest uptick is an encouraging sign. (One was formal, the other off-the-cuff, but both invoke the sarcastic "voluntold.") Of course, neither increase had the slope of the downdrafts that carried rough prices sharply lower in the latter half of 2022, again last year and in a final spurt to start 2024.

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