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by Will Purcell

The diamond and specialty minerals stocks box score on Friday was an upbeat 108-63-139 as the TSX Venture Exchange added eight points to 586. There have been glimmers of hope masked as optimism in the rough diamond market of late -- reports that while recent sales are well below last year's offerings, they may be a bit brighter than those completed earlier this year. And so, with enthusiasm kindled if not ablaze, diamond investors browsed off to see how the ever-so-gentle but 11-week-long increase in prices mapped out by Paul Zimnisky's global rough diamond price index had progressed this week.

And there it was -- gone, as Newfoundlanders say. Late-to-arrive data had the impact of a 9.5 earthquake on the past several weeks of Mr. Zimnisky's chart. Yes, the latest period of flatness has now run 12 weeks, but for the past six of them prices have steadily declined. First, Mr. Zimnisky's adjustments over that period forced last week's setting of 149.5 points downward to 147.8 points, and what was a gentle rise is now a 1.5-per-cent drop over the past six weeks. Worse, new data triggered a 0.5-point drop this week, and so the index now sits at 147.3 points, a further 0.3-per-cent decline from a week earlier.

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