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by Will Purcell

The diamond and specialty minerals stocks box score on Friday was an upbeat 91-68-151 as the TSX Venture Exchange rose five points to 595. It is no Bay of Fundy -- not yet at least -- but the tide of rough diamond prices is inching higher. Paul Zimnisky's global rough diamond price index posted its third weekly increase this week. This follows a month of flatness ending a five-month slide that peeled off about 9 per cent from already depressed prices.

With this week's fix at 137.5 points, Mr. Zimnisky added 0.4 point to his index, a gain of 0.3 per cent on the week and 0.5 per cent over the past month. Pessimists will of course point out that in early 2022, the index reached 207.3 points, an all-time high, and prices are now nearly 70 points -- 33.7 per cent -- below that peak. Further, current prices are 20.3 per cent lower than in early fall of 2014, highlighting the plight faced by miners and explorers alike.

Even the successful few are trading at tiny fractions of their 2016 highs. Adam Lundin and William Lamb's Lucara Diamond Corp. (LUC), a $4 stock in 2016, lost one cent to 44.5 cents on 288,000 shares today. Lucara hit its high thanks to the recovery of the 1,109-carat Lesedi La Rona diamond and its 813-carat sister, dubbed Constellation. Those two gems fetched $115-million (U.S.) when they sold in 2016. Since midsummer, Lucara has recovered exceptional diamonds weighing 2,492 carats and 1,094 carats, but the two gems barely budged the company's stock.

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