This item is part of Stockwatch's value added news feed and is only available to Stockwatch subscribers.

Here is a sample of this item:

by Will Purcell

The diamond and specialty minerals stocks box score on Friday was an upbeat 88-63-159 although the TSX Venture Exchange fell fractionally to 567.91. Rough diamond prices had their first upward move in several months this week, as Paul Zimnisky's global rough diamond price index edged ever so slightly higher. This week's setting was 136.4 points, a 0.1-point rise over a week ago, but to get there, prices had to gain 0.2 point to counteract a 0.1-point downward adjustment to correct for tardy data.

And so, the trend toward flattening prices looks stronger now. Yes, prices are 5.2 per cent lower over the past three months, but they are down just 0.5 per cent over the past month. That is the extent of the good news, unfortunately, as all the other time frame comparisons are still deeply in the red. Mr. Zimnisky has prices 34.2 per cent lower than the all-time high, when his index reached 207.3 points in early 2022.

Arguably the worst of the comparisons is the 10-year stretch. Mr. Zimnisky has rough prices down 20.9 per cent from late August of 2014, when his index hovered near the 172-point mark. Worse, inflation since then has tacked nearly 30 per cent onto the cost side of life, so rough diamond prices have lost close to 5 per cent annually over the past decade. That is particularly galling to investors who bought into the notion that rough diamond prices would surely outstrip inflation, perhaps by 2 per cent annually, for decades.

The remainder is available to Stockwatch subscribers.
Sign-up for a FREE 30-day Stockwatch subscription and SEE NO ADS