GICS 25 · GICS 30 — Consumer Discretionary and Consumer Staples: What the Two Sectors Actually Contain
Consumer Sectors Explained — What Consumer Discretionary and Consumer Staples mean under GICS, the industry groups inside each, and the borderline companies.
Discretionary is what households buy when they can; staples are what they buy regardless. The seven GICS industry groups behind the two labels, and the borderline names that show where the line is drawn — Amazon on one side, Costco on the other, Target moved across it in 2023.
What this page answers
GICS splits household spending in two: sector 25 (Consumer Discretionary, 4 industry groups, tracked by XLY) and sector 30 (Consumer Staples, 3 industry groups, tracked by XLP). The test is how much of a company's revenue moves with the cycle, not what sits on its shelves — which is why the 11 names below are the hard ones to place.
Discretionary is what households buy when they can; staples are what they buy regardless. The seven GICS industry groups behind the two labels, and the borderline names that show where the line is drawn — Amazon on one side, Costco on the other, Target moved across it in 2023. The data is refreshed by the History of Market pipeline and published as a stable JSON endpoint for research, citation, and AI-agent use.
The plate
Latest Snapshot
- Updated
- 2026-09-06
Border cases in the consumer split — 11 companies the definition has to decide about
| Ticker | Company | Sector | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| AMZN | Amazon.com | Consumer Discretionary | Amazon sells groceries and household goods, yet GICS classifies it by revenue mix into Consumer Discretionary Distribution & Retail (2550), not Staples. |
| COST | Costco Wholesale | Consumer Staples | Costco sits in Staples (3010): a membership warehouse's sales are dominated by food and household goods — the same shelf, the opposite classification from Amazon. |
| WMT | Walmart | Consumer Staples | Walmart has always been Staples (3010), never Discretionary — the most stable side of this boundary. |
| TGT | Target | Consumer Staples | Moved from Discretionary to Staples on 2023-03-17; in any series before that date it is a Discretionary name. |
| DG | Dollar General | Consumer Staples | Moved to Staples on 2023-03-17, the same day as Target and Dollar Tree. |
| DLTR | Dollar Tree | Consumer Staples | Likewise moved to Staples on 2023-03-17. |
| TSLA | Tesla | Consumer Discretionary | Tesla sits in Discretionary, group 2510 Automobiles & Components. It is not a technology name — not on the GICS ledger, at any rate. |
| MCD | McDonald's | Consumer Discretionary | Restaurants fall under Consumer Services (2530) and are therefore Discretionary, however routine the ticket size. |
| SBUX | Starbucks | Consumer Discretionary | Also Consumer Services (2530), on the same side as McDonald's. |
| NFLX | Netflix | none | Not a consumer name. The 2018 GICS revision moved media and entertainment into Communication Services (50); Netflix has been outside both 25 and 30 ever since. |
| DIS | Walt Disney | none | Likewise Communication Services (50) since 2018, not Consumer Discretionary. |
Complete record (11 rows). Raw dataset: https://historyofmarket.com/api/consumer/definitions.json
Data & Source
GET /api/consumer/definitions.json — Canonical dataset endpoint.
Exchange closing prices · Company filings · Robert Shiller · FRED · NBER.
FAQ
Where does this data come from?
History of Market combines public market and macro datasets — exchange closing prices, company filings, Robert Shiller, FRED, NBER, and the UBS Global Investment Returns Yearbook (Dimson–Marsh–Staunton). The exact endpoint for this panel is linked below.
How often is it updated?
Daily-tier datasets refresh after the U.S. market close, with a broader weekly refresh on Sunday. The timestamp shown on this page comes from the JSON payload.
Can I use the data?
Yes, for research and education with attribution to History of Market. Upstream data sources retain their own terms.