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by Will Purcell

The diamond and specialty minerals stocks box score on Friday was an upbeat 83-68-159 as the TSX Venture Exchange rose six points to 614. Paul Zimnisky peeled 0.3 point off this week's fix of his global rough diamond price index, reducing it to 136.1 points. This is where it was a month ago, ever so slightly below the 136.3 points at which it sat three months ago, and at the same point as when the most recent slide in rough prices abated in mid-August.

Mr. Zimnisky has a horizontal dashed line across the most recent four months of his chart -- a metaphorical trench defending against the latest offensive mounted by the forces of gloom and doom. The line appears to be holding -- even if just barely -- and that is an encouraging sign since this latest period of flat prices has outlasted one early this year, which petered out after barely two months. (An earlier attempt at a turnaround a year ago also faltered after two months, but that stretch coincided with a two-month moratorium on rough purchases in India that prompted several miners to withhold production to wait out the lack of demand.)

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