Every Stock Exchange is split into a number of sectors. A sector is a group of companies within the same industry such as Energy, Media or Finance. An important part of successful stock selection is to identify the best performing sectors, and then the best performing stocks within these sectors. This is what we call a sector analysis or a strong stock / strong sector approach. The Indices Summary table on the Home Page shows you the top 10 sectors and ranks their performance in percentage gain over the last 3 months.

Every exchange has a primary market index, For example, the FTSE All Share in the UK or the All Ordinaries in Australia. This is a weighted price index of the top companies on the exchange. It is the benchmark for overall market performance and is a useful tool to compare the performance of individual sectors. Sectors ranking above the primary market index are out-performing the overall market, while sectors below this index are under-performing the market. Even when the index is in negative territory, there is likely to be some good performing sectors, and a sector analysis highlights these.