To look at the health of the economy/market, simply look the health/strength of certain companies that would give you a big MACROECON picture:
The guy who lends you money to buy houses and other junks:
The guy who delivers the goods from the sellers to the buyers (B2B or B2C):
The guy who builds houses (if you have money, you probably want to own a house- it's The American Dream right?):
The guy who takes you from one place to another (vacation/business travelers):
The guy who helps companies raise money:
Overlay the chart of these companies with their competitors' and you can find who's doing better in that particular industry/sector. ie: When you overlay WaMu with other banks, you can see that WaMu is one of the worst performing bank in the industry- sometime this can means that investors are overly pessimistic on the company's outlook- value investors might pick these companies. Momentum traders would pay closer attention to the strongest of the pack- as they might be the first one to rally when the market does.
