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by Will Purcell

The diamond and specialty minerals stocks box score on Friday was a positive 80-68-162 as the TSX Venture Exchange rose three points to 879. Well, it appears the quiet advance of rough diamond prices was too good to last. (Sigh.) The forces of diamond gloom and doom mustered their reserves and launched an all-out offensive this week, and stealthily over the last several weeks, as Paul Zimnisky's global rough diamond price index bears little resemblance to last week's chart.

Late-to-arrive data not only wiped out the gentle ascent that we merrily climbed during the past two months, it left us peering down the slope of a new crater. And so, Mr. Zimnisky hastily extended his metaphorical trench of defence, the horizontal dashed line that he allowed to lapse a month ago, when it looked like the six-month plateau in prices was giving way to a long-awaited rally. Not so, unfortunately: His major readjustment peeled 3.7 points from last week's setting, and this week brought a further 1.1-point decline, putting the index at 126.4 points, 4.7 points lower than we thought it was a week ago.

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