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by Will Purcell

The diamond and specialty minerals stocks box score on Friday was a positive 113-81-116 as the TSX Venture Exchange rose fractionally to 622. Oops -- that was a short-lived rally in rough diamond prices. Paul Zimnisky's global rough diamond price index followed last week's 0.6-per-cent increase with a 0.2-per-cent drop this week.

And that is not all: The New York-based Mr. Zimnisky regularly readjusts his chart with late-to-arrive data, and that tardy new information wiped out most of the previous week's gain. And so, Mr. Zimnisky's index is now down 12.5 per cent from its all-time high, set in mid-February last year. The good news is that is still a full percentage point better than two weeks ago, when the readjustment pushed his index to 13.5 per cent below the high.

Where to from here, weary diamond promoters and miners undoubtedly ask, but there is little solace in the chart, other than a hint of a flattening in the decline if one squints long and hard at its squiggly, southbound line. Indeed, longer-term trends in rough diamond prices no longer look as enticing now as they did a year earlier, when they were at least matching inflation. Mr. Zimnisky now says prices are just 17.5 per cent higher than in early 2018, roughly on pace with inflation, but are up only 14.3 per cent over their early 2013 level.

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