Learn · Reading the tape
Sectors and rotation
How related companies are grouped, and why the same event can affect groups differently.
Last updated: 2026-09-20
Eleven groups organize the roster
Each MockTradeCity company belongs to one of eleven sectors: Tech Hardware, Internet & Software, Healthcare, Financials, Energy, Utilities, Defense & Aerospace, Autos & Mobility, Consumer, Materials and Real Estate. The classification organizes the city's fictional businesses and their exposure to simulated events. It is not a claim that the roster follows a particular real-world classification standard, and it does not make companies within a group identical in size or behavior.
A sector provides context for a company story. A production update at one business concerns that business directly, while an industry-wide event can affect several members together. The company summary and Market directory identify the assigned sector. Listings can change the roster, so the current directory supplies the membership used for comparisons. A remembered list from an earlier date may no longer describe the whole group visible in today's city.
An average is not an index weight
Daily Wrap's sector average is the arithmetic mean of member companies' daily percentage changes. Each member contributes equally to this calculation. If a three-company sector records plus three percent, minus one percent and plus one percent, the average is plus one percent. That result describes the group's average change. It does not mean every member rose one percent or that every account holding one of those companies earned that return.
The City Composite uses float-capitalization weights, which is a different method. A small company's large percentage move has the same per-company role in an unweighted sector average as a large company's percentage move, but their index contributions can be very different. Comparing the mean with individual members also reveals concentration: one unusually large move can pull the average away from the experience of most companies in that group.
A macro event has several exposures
The city's macro simulation maps events to sector-specific effects. An oil-price event, for example, can influence Energy differently from Autos & Mobility. A group with little modeled exposure may receive little or no direct input from the same event. These are rules of this fictional economy rather than universal statements about real securities. They explain why a single citywide headline need not move every internal valuation in the same direction.
Sector news has a narrower scope and applies to the relevant group. Company-specific news can overlap with it, so two members of one sector may experience different combined inputs. Those inputs then pass through participants' behavior and ordinary matching before appearing as trades. A shared classification creates a way to organize the information; it does not guarantee that every stock will move together or that a headline determines the closing sector average.
What rotation means here
Some virtual allocation desks respond to the combined active influence of sector news and macro events. Their rules can reduce holdings in one group and add holdings in another as those inputs change. The city calls this rotation. The desks operate with finite City Coin and inventory, so a change in their desired allocation is not the same as an unlimited instantaneous transfer of capital into every company they select.
Their orders use the same book as yours. They can fill, partially fill or remain unable to execute under the applicable restrictions. Different desks distribute their activity across companies rather than all having to choose one symbol. The resulting tape may show activity shifting between sectors, but the public statistics alone do not identify every participant's strategy. A rising sector average and high turnover describe observed outcomes; the engine's rotation rules explain one possible source of orders.
Where to compare sectors in the city
The Market page's sector filter narrows the company directory to one group. Sorting the remaining companies by change or turnover lets you compare members using the same displayed period. The sector label in the table confirms membership, and each company page connects the group to that business's own news. There is no need to assume a separate sector page or a directly tradable sector product to follow this information.
Daily Wrap discusses sector averages and relevant group news alongside the broader market result. Reading the individual company moves supplies the variation hidden by an average. Comparing publication times with trading activity can show the sequence of events, while the Composite explains the market-wide weighted outcome. Those views are complementary: group membership, equal-weight averages, index weights and completed turnover each describe a different part of the same fictional market, without establishing a future direction.