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by Will Purcell

The diamond and specialty minerals stocks box score on Friday was a positive 105-75-130 as the TSX Venture Exchange rose seven points to 680. Weekly drops in rough diamond prices remain modest, but since mid-February they have been relentless. Paul Zimnisky's global rough diamond price index revealed another 0.2-per-cent drop in rough prices this week, a 0.6-per-cent drop in the past month and a 2-per-cent decline since early May. Since the all-time high reached in mid-February, prices have now declined 6.6 per cent. Still, prices remain up nearly 13 per cent over the past year, as the nearly two-year-long surge in rough prices ended with a bang -- a 9-per-cent gain in just three months through the early winter.

Numbers and percentages are a measure of prices -- at least until late-arriving data forces a tweak of the trend -- but the usually optimistic diamantaires and analysts and the ever-optimistic mining promoters remain hopeful that the rise will resume with vigour renewed. After all, how could they be wrong? Demand is growing -- or at least flat -- and mines have scaled back production in recent years with few newcomers on the horizon.

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