[benrow]

There should be a name for the logical fallacy where direction of travel of a statistic is taken out of context. Local fluctuation being taken as the beginning of a trend. Perhaps just "short-sightedness", but it's more specific - inference of future events based on short term signals.

It's really common in news about the economy. I guess the outcome is really important, but we only have these instantaneous signals. So something like superstition kicks in (when we're not carefully considering what is stated).