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by Will Purcell

The diamond and specialty minerals stocks box score on Friday was a positive 74-63-173 as the TSX Venture Exchange rose four points to 683. The flattish run continues for rough diamond prices, as Paul Zimnisky's global rough diamond price index now sits at 127.4 points. That is down 0.2 point from where we thought it was a week ago, although only half that slight decline is attributable to current prices. The other 0.1-point drop occurred when Mr. Zimnisky corrected his chart for tardy data from the week before.

And so, the current flat stretch now runs for eight weeks. Previously, there had been a 3.5-point bounce from what now looks like the multiyear low of 124.3 points, set in early February. Prior to that, there had been a gradual descent to that low, such that Mr. Zimnisky now includes the past 22 weeks -- since early December -- as the full period of price stability that might -- one hopes -- represent a coming bull run for diamonds.

That bull has a long way to run before getting back to its all-time high of 207.3 points in mid-February of 2022. Mr. Zimnisky currently has prices nearly 80 points -- 38.6 per cent -- below that high. Indeed, the only longer-term comparison where current prices are higher are the COVID-19 collapse of five years ago, when the index hovered just above 120 points, and in the first months after he launched his index at 100 points in late 2007.

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