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by Will Purcell

The diamond and specialty minerals stocks box score on Friday was a positive 90-84-136 although the TSX Venture Exchange lost three points to 567. The rough diamond price stagnation continues, but at least the two-year slide in prices has been interrupted, if not ended. Paul Zimnisky's global rough diamond price index rose 0.4 point this week to sit at 149.5 points, back to where it was two weeks ago, and a 0.2-per-cent rise from last week. The latest flatness has now run for 11 weeks, a period in which the index has gained 1.1 points, an annualized rate of increase of 3.5 per cent.

The current plateau -- valley floor would be a better analogy -- arguably began in mid-October, at the start of a two-month voluntary moratorium on rough diamond purchases in the Indian market. Prices increased slowly during that stretch, as many diamond miners withheld goods or cancelled sales completely during the moratorium, but once it ended and the goods hit the market, rough diamond prices fell 3.5 per cent to a now multiyear low of 148.4 points.

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