what is sector

A sector is a part of the economy that includes businesses that share the same or related business activity, product, or service. Sectors represent a large grouping of companies with similar business activities, such as the extraction of natural resources and agriculture. Economists divide the economy into different sectors to analyze the economic activity within those sectors, which provides an indication of whether an economy is expanding or contracting. In the financial markets, sectors are broken down even further into sub-sectors called investment sectors, which represent a grouping of companies with similar business activities. The global economy is broken down into 11 different sectors, as defined by the Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS) . The terms "industry" and "sector" have different meanings, with industry referring to a specific group of similar types of companies, while sector describes a large segment of the economy.