The Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS) is an

industry taxonomy Industry classification or industry taxonomy is a type of economic taxonomy that classifies companies, organizations and traders into industrial groupings based on similar production processes, similar products, or similar behavior in financial ma ...

developed in 1999 by

MSCI MSCI Inc. (formerly Morgan Stanley Capital International) is an American finance company headquartered in New York City. MSCI is a global provider of equity, fixed income, real estate indices, multi-asset portfolio analysis tools, ESG and ...

and

Standard & Poor's S&P Global Ratings (previously Standard & Poor's and informally known as S&P) is an American credit rating agency (CRA) and a division of S&P Global that publishes financial research and analysis on stocks, bonds, and commodities. S&P is co ...

(S&P) for use by the global financial community. The GICS structure consists of 11 sectors, 25 industry groups, 74 industries and 163 sub-industries into which S&P has categorized all major

public companies A public company is a company whose ownership is organized via shares of stock which are intended to be freely traded on a stock exchange or in over-the-counter markets. A public (publicly traded) company can be listed on a stock exchange ( ...

. The system is similar to ICB (

Industry Classification Benchmark The Industry Classification Benchmark (ICB) is an industry classification taxonomy launched by Dow Jones and FTSE in 2005 and now used by FTSE International and STOXX. It is used to segregate markets into sectors within the macroeconomy. The ICB ...

), a classification structure maintained by FTSE Group. GICS is used as a basis for S&P and

indexes used in the financial field which each company is assigned to a sub-industry, and to an industry, industry group, and sector, by its principal business activity. "GICS" is a

registered trademark A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a form of intellectual property that consists of a word, phrase, symbol, design, or a combination that identifies a product or service from a particular source and distinguishes it from ot ...

McGraw Hill Financial S&P Global Inc. (prior to 2016, McGraw Hill Financial, Inc., and prior to 2013, The McGraw–Hill Companies, Inc.) is an American publicly traded corporation headquartered in Manhattan, New York City. Its primary areas of business are financia ...

and MSCI Inc.

Classification

The classification is as follows: Per the

MSCI World The MSCI World is a widely followed global stock market index that tracks the performance of around 1,500 large and mid-cap companies across 23 developed countries. It is maintained by MSCI, formerly Morgan Stanley Capital International, and is ...

index, Information Technology is the biggest sector, with 22% of world capitalisation.

Revisions

The classification standard is regularly updated by S&P Dow Jones Indices and MSCI. Numerous changes over the years have resulted in the addition, deletion, or redefinition of various sub-industries, industries, or industry groups. Since 1999, there have been two revisions at the sector level: *In 2016, the real estate industry group (with the exception of mortgage

REIT A real estate investment trust (REIT, pronounced "reet") is a company that owns, and in most cases operates, income-producing real estate. REITs own many types of real estate, including office and apartment buildings, studios, warehouses, hos ...

s) was moved out of the financials sector to a newly created real estate sector. *In 2018, the telecommunication services sector was renamed communication services. The sector was expanded to include media and entertainment companies previously in the consumer discretionary sector, as well as interactive media and services companies from the information technology sector. *In March 2023, several revisions were made.

References

{{reflist Industry classifications Financial markets

Classification

Revisions

See also

References