This item is part of Stockwatch's value added news feed and is only available to Stockwatch subscribers.

Here is a sample of this item:

by Will Purcell

The diamond and specialty minerals stocks box score on Friday was a positive 90-78-142 as the TSX Venture Exchange rose three points to 721. Rough diamond prices remain flattish, but Paul Zimnisky's global rough diamond price index did drift northward -- a slight increase, mind you, but its best performance in nearly two months. The current setting is 126.9 points, a 0.4-per-cent bump from a week ago.

Yes, prices are 80 points lower -- nearly 40 per cent -- than when Mr. Zimnisky pegged rough diamond prices at a record 207.3 points in early 2022, and yes, the current setting is nearly 20 per cent below where it was a decade ago. Still, it could be worse: After three years of relentless decline, which bottomed at 123.2 points four months ago, Mr. Zimnisky estimates that rough diamond prices regained 3 per cent from the bottom during February and have since held that gain.

With rough prices essentially at lows set during the Great Recession and the COVID pandemic, little wonder that Canada's diamond miners are trading near their all-time lows. Still, "near" is better than "at," as investors who paid just five cents for a share of Mountain Province Diamonds Inc. (MPVD) earlier this year will tell you: Mountain Province lost one-half cent to 6.5 cents on 195,000 shares today. (As for the poor souls who paid over $7 for a share in 2016, when chatting with one, perhaps you had best turn the conversation around to politics and religion.)

The remainder is available to Stockwatch subscribers.
Sign-up for a FREE 30-day Stockwatch subscription and SEE NO ADS