Seeds of an Economic Turnaround?

At this time, the American economy is in a downturn with a good bit of the popular press devoted to subjects such as the sub prime mortgage crisis, the low value of the dollar, unemployment, and the credit crunch. Yet, among the stories on reuters.com today:

* Hedge funds sell oil as ratio to gold narrows
* Gasoline prices retreat, could fall more: survey

And so the seeds of the next epoch of the American economy start cracking open beneath the soil.

It would be easy to miss this information. Most of the economic reports and opinions floating about (at any given time) are lagging indicators. They are based on the good or bad news of the last few months or even years. So it turns out that there's a reason why it always seems "darkest before the dawn". When a situation begins to change, we tend not to notice it because we are busy mentally processing the old bad news. The same holds true for good news too, which is why we also say, "Pride goes before a fall."

By the way, I'm not predicting a turnaround. The stories I mentioned above are merely seeds beneath the soil. They could be wiped out by unforeseen events even before they have a chance to sprout. I'm simply pointing out that since nothing ever stands still, it's useful to pay particular attention to what is presently happening if you wish to develop independent opinions about current events. And possibly even profit from them.