I have observed a phenomenon over last few years. The hypothesis needs to be further validated.

1. If you are investing in companies that are people intensive like:- financial institutions, IT companies, retail. Go to job search websites and identify how many vacancies these companies have posted. The hypothesis is that if these companies have aggressive hiring plans that means they are seriously looking for growth.---i.e. at micro level

2. Sometimes after November last year (09) we saw that vacancies on the Job sites just evaporated. Calls from the consultants dropped drastically. If you again start browsing through the Jobsites you will find the number of vacancies have suddenly gone up!!  This I think symbolizes growth. This is further validated by the current IIP nos and news of 6 out of top 10 economies coming of recession.---at Macro level.

Any comments. Let me know what do you think?