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by Will Purcell

The diamond and specialty minerals stocks box score on Friday was an upbeat 84-52-174 as the TSX Venture Exchange rose eight points to 686. Rough diamond prices continued their flattish stretch this week -- just not on a plateau quite as high as we thought it was according to Paul Zimnisky's global rough diamond price index. First, Mr. Zimnisky lowered last week's setting -- and several other recent ones -- by 0.5 point to account for late-to-arrive data. He then lowered this week's setting another 0.2 point, putting the current index at 126.7 points, about 0.7 point lower than where we thought it was a week ago.

Not to worry -- the price plateau remains as flat as can be, and current prices are still 2.4 points above the five-year low of 124.3 points set in early February. That low marked the end of a three-year slide in rough prices that began in mid-February of 2022, when Mr. Zimnisky's index bubbled to a record high of 207.3 points in response to the supply-demand imbalance triggered by the COVID-19 shutdowns in 2020. (At the current plateau, Mr. Zimnisky estimates that rough diamond prices are 38.8 per cent lower than the record high.)

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