The Global Industry Classification Standard is a system for categorizing every public company by economic sector and industry group. An industry is a classification that refers to a group of companies that are related in terms of their primary business activities. The content on this website is for informational purposes only and does not constitute a comprehensive description of Titan’s investment advisory services.
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From equities, fixed income to derivatives, the CMSA certification bridges the gap from where you are now to where you want to be — a world-class capital markets analyst. I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article. Some of the largest utilities companies include NextEra Energy , Duke , and The Southern Company . Some of the largest materials companies in the world include DuPont and The Sherwin-Williams Company . Select your topics and use cases to stay current with our award winning research, industry events, and latest products. Find out more about the GICS structure & sub-industry definitions.
Why Do Sectors Matter?
Included in the materials sector are companies that produce chemicals, construction materials, containers & packaging, metals, paper, and forest products. Bankrate.com is an independent, advertising-supported publisher and comparison service. We are compensated in exchange for placement of sponsored products and, services, or by you clicking on certain links posted on our site. Therefore, this compensation may impact how, where and in what order products appear within listing categories.
It includes grocery stores and retailers like Walmart and Target. The communication services sector tends to follow the general market. Generally, there are strong gains during a bull market, but a bear market can lead to severe losses. Also, some companies in this sector may struggle as technology advances and they’re forced to adapt. We know that there are 11 different stock sectors and 2 categories that help to make up a stock sectors list.
Sensitive Super Sector
The content created by our editorial staff is objective, factual, and not influenced by our advertisers. Bankrate follows a strict editorial policy, so you can trust that we’re putting your interests first. Other notable sector names include Berkshire Hathaway, American Express, and Aon plc.
Oil prices have a strong bearing on the performance of Energy companies, although different companies are affected differently. Producers of oil perform strongly during periods while its price is high, but oil refiners benefit when oil prices are lower. The amount of volatility in oil prices may make energy stocks attractive to speculators. Demand for fossil fuels has fallen in recent years thanks to growing demand for renewables and the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. While renewable forms of electricity consumption are included in the Utilities sector, Energy encompasses all other forms of energy production — specifically, oil, natural gas, and coal. The sector doesn’t include producers of traditional fossil fuels, like oil and gas companies.
Transportation stocks such as airlines, railroads, and logistics companies are found within the industrials sector, as are companies in the aerospace, defense, construction, and engineering industries. Companies making building products, electrical equipment, and machinery also fall into this sector, as do many conglomerates. Kent Thune, CFP®, is a fiduciary investment advisor specializing in tactical asset allocation and portfolio management with a focus on ETFs and sector investing. Mr. Thune has 25 years of wealth management experience and has navigated clients through four bear markets and some of the most challenging economic environments in history. As a writer, Kent’s articles have been seen on multiple investing and finance websites, including Seeking Alpha, Kiplinger, MarketWatch, The Motley Fool, Yahoo Finance, and The Balance.
Some of the industries in this sector include aerospace, defense, construction, engineering, and infrastructure. The energy sector is made up of companies that work in energy sources, equipment, and services. Companies in this sector engage in a wide range of products and services, dukascopy review including drilling, energy exploration and production, storage and transportation, marketing, refining, and more. The energy sector doesn’t include most renewable energy companies. Instead, it’s primarily dominated by oil and gas, along with coal and other consumable fuels.
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The IT sector includes some of the market’s largest companies, such as Alphabet , Meta , and Apple. The materials sector includes companies that produce chemicals, glass, paper, forestry products, metals, packaging, construction materials and steel. The energy sector includes companies engaged in exploration and production of oil and other hydrocarbons, refining, the transportation of oil and gas, and production of oil and gas equipment. The communication services sector consists of companies that keep people connected. The more exciting part of the sector includes media, entertainment, and interactive media & services companies.
Companies in the utilities sector are businesses that provide basic amenities, such as water, sewage services, electricity, dams and natural gas. Examples of the utilities sector stocks include Consolidated Edison , Duke Energy , Exelon , NRG Energy and PG&E . Companies in the financials sector are businesses that provide financial the commitments of traders bible services to commercial and retail customers. Examples of the financials sector stocks include Aflac , Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-A), JPMorgan Chase , Goldman Sachs and MetLife . Understanding the different stock market sectors can help traders and investors both spread their risks and make better-informed decisions.
A defensive super sector is a grouping of market sectors that include Health Care, Consumer Staples and Utilities. These are industries that are relatively immune to economic cycles. In general, the stocks in these industries have a beta of less than 1. Companies in the information technology sector are businesses that research, develop and distribute technology-based goods and services. Examples of the information technology sector stocks include Adobe , Apple , Microsoft and Oracle . Companies in the health care sector are businesses that are focused upon improving and healing human life.
Stock Sectors List
The energy sector consists of all companies that play a part in the oil, gas, and consumable fuels business. This includes companies that find, drill, and extract the commodity. It also includes the companies that refine the material and companies that provide or manufacturer the equipment used in the refinement process. Companies such as Exxon Mobil and Chevron extract and refine gas, while companies like Kinder Morgan transport fuel to gas stations. The different stock sectors house many stocks as well as having its own role.
- It includes companies at all stages of pharmaceutical and biotech research, development and production.
- It’s conveniently divided into sectors that group different companies by the types of business they conduct.
- An investment manager can target a specific sector or they can manage a portfolio that includes multiple sectors.
- The financials sector consists of companies involved in banking, including mortgage and consumer finance, as well as investment banks, brokerage firms and insurance companies.
- Within each sector, there are a number of different publicly traded companies that share the same broad focus.
Even the best traders in the world fail 30-40% of the time, but they manage their risk for when patterns fail. Again, patterns aren’t foolproof and they do fail, so being able to manage your risk is key when trading. This chart compares the performance of the overall S&P 500 Index to the performance of the 11 sectors over one-, five-, and 10-year time frames. Not all stocks fit perfectly like jigsaw pieces into a specific sector, which can be confusing. View a complete list of consumer discretionary ETFs on our sister site ETF Database here.
Real estate sector
A well-diversified portfolio should have access to as many sectors as possible, and not concentrate too many funds into any single sector or related sectors. You may also want to apply the five percent rule with sector funds. For example, if you wanted to diversify within specialty sectors, such as biotech, commercial traders trust review real estate, or gold miners, you simply keep your allocation to 5% or less for each. Within each sector, numerous sub-sectors and industries can also be further delineated. The Global Industry Classification Standard also known as GICS is the primary financial industry standard for defining sector classifications.
Its broker-dealer subsidiary, Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. , offers investment services and products, including Schwab brokerage accounts. Its banking subsidiary, Charles Schwab Bank, SSB , provides deposit and lending services and products. Access to Electronic Services may be limited or unavailable during periods of peak demand, market volatility, systems upgrade, maintenance, or for other reasons. In 1999 a Global Industry Classification Standard was formed as a way to keep the stock market a bit organized.
You’ve probably heard the proverb “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” Diversification helps with that because each type of investment offers different potential for gains and losses. So to diversify, a person may choose to invest in stocks across different sectors and company sizes, for instance, and spread some of their money across different asset classes, too. With thousands of companies in the U.S. stock market, investors need a system to make sense of it all. To help sort things, companies in the stock market are broken into 11 sectors. Knowing these sectors can help investors understand the market and build diversified portfolios.