The commodity I'm going to tell you about today is the world's most important commodity.  By watching the price of this commodity, you'll know when the recession is ending... before anyone else. You'll know if Obama's stimulus plan is having any effect. You'll know when the construction industry is about to start hiring again or when the banks are about to start lending again. And you'll be able to tell your neighbors when house prices are going to rise again. Around the office, we say copper has a PhD in economics because it predicts recessions and booms. We call it "Dr. Copper." But the commodity I'm going to tell you about today is a much more valuable indicator for right now, andno one's paying attention to it. Let me explain...  The people in charge of the economic recovery have decided if they can "fix" the real estate market, then everything will fix itself.  So the Fed has aimed its printing press directly at the real estate market. It will buy $500 billion of mortgages using freshly created dollars. The government has focused many of its plans on the real estate market, too... like its recent demand for the banks to halt foreclosures and Obama's $50 billion mortgage and foreclosure rescue plan which comes out next week.  In other words, the U.S. real estate market is the main pivot in the whole economic mess we're in right now. If you can figure out what's happening in real estate, you can figure out everything else. The best leading indicator of real estate is lumber. About two thirds of American demand for lumber comes from the homebuilding and remodeling industries... so its price is highly sensitive to strength and weakness in construction.  Take the timeline of the current crisis as an example. The lumber price reacted before any other market: Lumber prices peaked in May 2004. The Bloomberg Homebuilders Index peaked in July 2005. The Case-Shiller U.S. home price index peaked in July 2006. The credit crunch started in February 2007, when New Century Financial collapsed. And finally, the S&P 500 peaked in October 2007. When the recovery comes, I expect it'll show up first in the lumber price, too... Right now, lumber is down 66% from its 2004 all-time high. A standard railcar load of lumber sells for $17,050 – the same price it was selling for in 1973.  Looking at the monthly chart, there's still no sign of an uptrend... but I can report the lumber price has risen 12% in the last three weeks, up from 1969 prices. 
The lumber price holds the key for investors right now. Make sure you keep an eye on it.  Good investing, Tom  P.S. You can get this chart of lumber prices on StockCharts. Just type in the symbol $LUMBER. Editor's note: Tom Dyson is a regular contributor to DailyWealth, a free investment newsletter focused on the world's best contrarian opportunities. We write with a simple belief in mind: You don't have to take big risks to make big money with your investments.  Sign up today to read more investment ideas from Tom Dyson.