what is a sector breakdown 
a sector breakdown is the mix of industry sectors like technology or healthcare held by a fund or portfolio typically expressed as a percentage sector designations can vary depending on the fund s investment criteria and overall objective investopedia eliana rodgerssector investinga sector breakdown can help an investor observe the investment allocations of a fund fund companies regularly provide sector reporting in their marketing materials sector investing can influence investments in the fund a fund may target a specific sector such as technology or seek to diversify among many sectors some funds may have restraints on sector investments this may occur with environmental social and governance esg focused funds these funds seek to exclude industries or companies that their investors consider undesirable for various reasons such as tobacco producers or oil exploration companies a sector fund allocates 100 to a specified sector such as healthcare technology or energy gicsthe global industry classification standard also known as gics is the primary financial industry standard for defining sector classifications gics was developed by index providers msci and the s p dow jones its hierarchy begins with 11 sectors which can be further delineated to 25 industry groups 74 industries and 163 sub industries it follows a coding system that assigns a code from each grouping to every company publicly traded in the market 111 sectorsthe eleven sectors defined by gics include diversificationa diversified stock portfolio will hold stocks across most gics sectors diversification across stock sectors helps to mitigate idiosyncratic or unsystematic risks caused by factors affecting specific industries or companies within an industry sector indexes can be used by investors seeking to invest in the growth prospects of a single sector investment companies offer passive index funds that seek to replicate each of the eleven gics sectors the vanguard information technology index fund is one example of a passively managed mutual fund that replicates the holdings of the msci u s investable market information technology index 2