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by Will Purcell

The diamond and specialty minerals stocks box score on Monday was a bright 107-79-124 as the TSX Venture Exchange regained 17 points to 983. Interest in Canada's resource-laden exchanges has been dominated by the ups and downs -- but mostly ups -- experienced by gold. Bullion's gyrations aside, the past week or two has been -- apologies to Charles Dickens -- the best of times, the worst of times for Canada's critical minerals explorers.

Take Pat Ryan's Ucore Rare Metals Inc. (UCU). Flatlined at 75 cents early this year, Ucore's stock went ballistic through the summer and early fall, soaring to $13.07 a week ago. Like most specialty minerals stocks, Ucore took hits last Wednesday and Thursday, then had to be saved on Friday by an exchange circuit breaker as it crashed to $6.25. The five-minute time-out worked: Ucore ended the day up seven cents to $8.44 on 3.96 million shares.

Mr. Ryan, chairman and chief executive officer, relentlessly applauds his company's plan to produce rare earth elements at a proposed facility in Louisiana using proprietary refining technology. Ucore also has a significant rare earth deposit at Bokan-Dotson Ridge in southeastern Alaska, but the company has lately been touting the refining end of the plan, the mining not so much. Indeed, mention of the deposit is usually relegated to the end of the corporate boilerplate, where Ucore says Bokan-Dotson Ridge is touted for "longer-term development." Ucore added six cents to $8.50 on 2.69 million shares today.

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