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by Will Purcell

The diamond and specialty minerals stocks box score on Friday was a mediocre 67-81-162 as the TSX Venture Exchange fell two points to 637. The five-week run of rising rough diamond prices ended this week, as Paul Zimnisky, a New York-based diamond analyst, tweaked his global rough diamond price index 0.1 point lower to 128.2. That is the same value that he had last week, so Mr. Zimnisky had added 0.1 point to last week's setting to account for late-to-arrive data.

Not to worry diamond investors -- not yet at least -- the past six weeks still show a healthy 3.1-per-cent bump since Mr. Zimnisky pegged prices at a three-year low of 124.3 points in early February. Yes, his index is still 79.1 points lower than his 207.3-point setting back in mid-February of 2022, and there is a long and probably tortuous road ahead before that 38.2-per-cent decline disappears. Nevertheless, every long road trip starts by pulling away from the curb.

Of course, all the vehicles in those metaphorical journeys start with a tune-up and a full load of gas, while rough diamonds are pulling off with just fumes in the tank and a worrisome knock coming from under the hood. Still, there is some good news for a change: It appears that if anything is driving the recent increase in rough prices it is the lack of supply of mined diamonds, not an increase in demand for jewellery -- based on polished prices at least.

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