Stock Market Sectors

The U.S. stock market is commonly organized into 11 sectors. We publish those familiar names, but the classification behind them is our data provider's rather than GICS — we correct it where the two genuinely disagree, so mortgage REITs sit with Financials, education with Consumer Discretionary and packaging with Materials. It groups the 21,000+ publicly traded companies we cover by their primary business activity, making it possible to compare performance, identify trends, and build diversified portfolios across the entire market.

Sector analysis is one of the most effective tools available to investors. By tracking how capital flows between sectors, you can identify which areas of the economy are gaining momentum and which are losing favor. Cyclical sectors like Technology and Consumer Discretionary tend to outperform during economic expansions, while defensive sectors like Utilities and Consumer Staples often hold up better during downturns.

Each sector page on Stock Expert AI provides AI-powered MoonshotScore ratings, daily price movements, top gainers and losers, industry breakdowns, and comprehensive stock tables. The MoonshotScore rates each U.S. common stock against its sector peers across five pillars—business quality, financial safety, valuation, growth durability, and momentum—while ETFs, OTC names, and foreign listings use a legacy nine-signal model, surfacing the strongest stocks within each sector.

Currently, the largest sector by company count is Financials with 16,797 stocks, while the smallest is Utilities with 565 stocks. Use the sector pages below to drill into each area of the market.

Stock Expert AI evaluates every publicly traded U.S. stock using the MoonshotScore, a proprietary 0–100 composite rating. U.S.-listed common stocks are scored against their sector peers across five pillars: business quality, financial safety, valuation, growth durability, and momentum. ETFs, OTC names, and foreign listings use a legacy nine-signal quantitative model spanning growth, margins, cash position, insider activity, liquidity, momentum, and news sentiment.

Price data is sourced from Financial Modeling Prep (FMP) with Yahoo Finance as a fallback. Fundamental data comes from SEC filings, FMP, and Alpha Vantage. Sentiment signals are derived from aggregated analyst ratings and news flow. All metrics refresh during market hours; after-hours data reflects the most recent closing values.

Sector names are the familiar eleven, but the classification itself is our data provider's, not GICS, and departs from it in places — mortgage REITs, education and packaging are filed the way GICS files them; the rest follow the provider. Companies are assigned to one sector and to one of 50+ industries by their primary revenue source.