The Globe and Mail reports in its Saturday edition that after Air Canada settled a long-simmering labour dispute with its pilots' union last week, the stock rose 3.5 per cent. The Globe's David Berman writes, however, that the bigger gains occurred from a low in early August. Clearly, some intrepid investors recognized that uncertainty was depressing Air Canada's share price, which was down 27 per cent since the start of May. Just about any resolution to the labour dispute would make Air Canada ripe for a rebound and easy profits. As anyone who buys a stock on a downturn knows, timing a recovery is tough to get right, but the longer-term payoff rests on a tantalizing pattern: A stock's recovery tends to begin long before good news arrives. Air Canada is just one recent example. BCE's share price was exploring 11-year lows in early July, when concerns about stiff competition for wireless customers, regulatory pressures, a heavy debt load and an unclear future for its gargantuan dividend weighed on investor sentiment. Since then, the share price has rebounded 12 per cent. Investors who pounced on BCE at its recent lows may have been betting that an old, bloated telco had plenty of financial levers at its disposal.