The information technology sector spans a myriad of industries, from software startups to billion-dollar hardware providers. Before you invest, know what you’re investing in and familiarize yourself with the company’s key competitors.
What are information technology stocks?
Information technology (IT) stocks belong to the IT sector, defined by The Global Industry Classification Standards 11 stock market sectors — each named for a distinct slice of the market. The information technology sector is characterized by companies responsible for the research and development of electronic goods and services. It houses some of the most recognizable names on the market, including Apple, Amazon, Google and Microsoft.
What subcategories does it include?
The technology sector is broken down into three major industry groups:
Software. Companies that fall within the software industry include service providers connected to IT, data processing, search engines, systems software, home entertainment software and the Internet. Big names in this industry include Google, eBay, Amazon, PayPal and Microsoft.
Hardware. Providers in the hardware industry include companies that manufacture communications equipment, PCs, cell phones, electronic equipment, transformers and point-of-sale hardware. Some of the biggest players in this industry are Apple, HP, SanDisk and Motorola.
Semiconductors. A semiconductor is a piece of material — typically silicon — that conducts electricity across electronic circuits. Companies that manufacture semiconductors fall within this industry, including Intel, Microchip Technology and Texas Instruments.
How to invest in the information technology sector
There are two ways to invest in a stock sector: individual stocks and sector-tracking ETFs. If you’d prefer to invest in individual companies and not the sector as a whole, stocks are your best bet. They tend to be more volatile than ETFs but can offer high-yield returns. If you’re interested in following the entire sector, consider an ETF. ETFs are more stable than stocks and offer more exposure, but come with expense ratios that typically range from 0.03% to 2.5%. To purchase stocks or ETFs, you’ll need a brokerage account. Here’s what to expect of the investment process:
Compare platforms. With so many online brokerages to choose from, explore your platform options to find the broker best suited to your needs.
Open an account. Applications for web-based brokerages can be completed online.
Fund your account. Before you can begin trading, fund your account with a transfer from an external account.
Pick your securities. Use a screening tool to filter your options by sector.
Place an order. Once you’ve found a security you’d like to purchase, submit your order.
Track your investments. Log into your brokerage account to track the progress of your investments.
What stocks are in the information technology sector?
See how the following stocks are performing, and view details like market capitalization, the price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio, price/earnings-to-growth (PEG) ratio and dividend yield.
Company summary
Alphabet Inc. offers various products and platforms in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Asia-Pacific, Canada, and Latin America. It operates through Google Services, Google Cloud, and Other Bets segments. The Google Services segment provides products and services, including ads, Android, Chrome, devices, Gmail, Google Drive, Google Maps, Google Photos, Google Play, Search, and YouTube. It is also involved in the sale of apps and in-app purchases and digital content in the Google Play and YouTube; and devices, as well as in the provision of YouTube consumer subscription services. The Google Cloud segment offers infrastructure, cybersecurity, databases, analytics, AI, and other services; Google Workspace that include cloud-based communication and collaboration tools for enterprises, such as Gmail, Docs, Drive, Calendar, and Meet; and other services for enterprise customers. The Other Bets segment sells healthcare-related and internet services. The company was incorporated in 1998 and is headquartered in Mountain View, California.
Amazon.com, Inc. engages in the retail sale of consumer products, advertising, and subscriptions service through online and physical stores in North America and internationally. The company operates through three segments: North America, International, and Amazon Web Services (AWS). It also manufactures and sells electronic devices, including Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TVs, Echo, Ring, Blink, and eero; and develops and produces media content. In addition, the company offers programs that enable sellers to sell their products in its stores; and programs that allow authors, independent publishers, musicians, filmmakers, Twitch streamers, skill and app developers, and others to publish and sell content. Further, it provides compute, storage, database, analytics, machine learning, and other services, as well as advertising services through programs, such as sponsored ads, display, and video advertising. Additionally, the company offers Amazon Prime, a membership program. The company's products offered through its stores include merchandise and content purchased for resale and products offered by third-party sellers. It serves consumers, sellers, developers, enterprises, content creators, advertisers, and employees. Amazon.com, Inc. was incorporated in 1994 and is headquartered in Seattle, Washington.
Apple Inc. designs, manufactures, and markets smartphones, personal computers, tablets, wearables, and accessories worldwide. The company offers iPhone, a line of smartphones; Mac, a line of personal computers; iPad, a line of multi-purpose tablets; and wearables, home, and accessories comprising AirPods, Apple TV, Apple Watch, Beats products, and HomePod. It also provides AppleCare support and cloud services; and operates various platforms, including the App Store that allow customers to discover and download applications and digital content, such as books, music, video, games, and podcasts. In addition, the company offers various services, such as Apple Arcade, a game subscription service; Apple Fitness+, a personalized fitness service; Apple Music, which offers users a curated listening experience with on-demand radio stations; Apple News+, a subscription news and magazine service; Apple TV+, which offers exclusive original content; Apple Card, a co-branded credit card; and Apple Pay, a cashless payment service, as well as licenses its intellectual property. The company serves consumers, and small and mid-sized businesses; and the education, enterprise, and government markets. It distributes third-party applications for its products through the App Store. The company also sells its products through its retail and online stores, and direct sales force; and third-party cellular network carriers, wholesalers, retailers, and resellers. Apple Inc. was founded in 1976 and is headquartered in Cupertino, California.
Atlassian Corporation, through its subsidiaries, designs, develops, licenses, and maintains various software products worldwide. Its product portfolio includes Jira Software and Jira Work Management, a project management system that connects technical and business teams so they can better plan, organize, track and manage their work and projects; Confluence, a connected workspace that organizes knowledge across all teams to move work forward; and Trello, a collaboration and organization product that captures and adds structure to fluid and fast-forming work for teams. The company also offers Jira Service Management, an intuitive and flexible service desk product for creating and managing service experiences for various service team providers, such as IT, legal, and HR teams; and Jira Align, an Atlassian's enterprise agility solution designed to help businesses to adapt and respond dynamic business conditions with a focus on value-creation. In addition, it provides Bitbucket, an enterprise-ready Git solution that enables professional dev teams to manage, collaborate, and deploy quality code; Atlassian Access, an enterprise-wide product for enhanced security and centralized administration that works across every Atlassian cloud product; and Jira Product, a prioritization and road mapping tool. Further, the company's portfolio includes Atlas, a teamwork directory; Bamboo, a continuous delivery pipeline; Crowd, a single sign-on; Crucible, a collaborative code review; Fisheye, a search, track, and visualize code change software; and Compass, a developer experience platform. Additionally, it offers Opsgenie, an on-call and alert management software; Sourcetree, a free git client for windows and mac; Statuspage that communicates real-time status to users; Beacon, an intelligent threat detection software; and Atlassian Access that enhance data security and governance for Atlassian Cloud products. The company was founded in 2002 and is headquartered in Sydney, Australia.
Cisco Systems, Inc. designs, manufactures, and sells Internet Protocol based networking and other products related to the communications and information technology industry in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Asia Pacific, Japan, and China. The company also offers switching portfolio encompasses campus switching as well as data center switching; enterprise routing portfolio interconnects public and private wireline and mobile networks, delivering highly secure, and reliable connectivity to campus, data center and branch networks; wireless products include wireless access points and controllers; and compute portfolio including the cisco unified computing system, hyperflex, and software management capabilities, which combine computing, networking, and storage infrastructure management and virtualization. In addition, it provides Internet for the future product consists of routed optical networking, 5G, silicon, and optics solutions; collaboration products, such as meetings, collaboration devices, calling, contact center, and communication platform as a service; end-to-end security product consists of network security, cloud security, security endpoints, unified threat management, and zero trust; and optimized application experiences products including full stack observability and network assurance. Further, the company offers a range of service and support options for its customers, including technical support and advanced services and advisory services. It serves businesses of various sizes, public institutions, governments, and service providers. The company sells its products and services directly, as well as through systems integrators, service providers, other resellers, and distributors. Cisco Systems, Inc. has strategic alliances with other companies. Cisco Systems, Inc. was incorporated in 1984 and is headquartered in San Jose, California.
Meta Platforms, Inc. develops products that enable people to connect and share with friends and family through mobile devices, personal computers, virtual reality headsets, wearables, and in-home devices worldwide. It operates in two segments, Family of Apps and Reality Labs. The Family of Apps segment's products include Facebook, which enables people to share, discover, and connect with interests; Instagram, a community for sharing photos, videos, and private messages, as well as feed, stories, reels, video, live, and shops; Messenger, a messaging application for people to connect with friends, family, groups, and businesses across platforms and devices through chat, audio and video calls, and rooms; and WhatsApp, a messaging application that is used by people and businesses to communicate and transact privately. The Reality Labs segment provides augmented and virtual reality related products comprising virtual reality hardware, software, and content that help people feel connected, anytime, and anywhere. The company was formerly known as Facebook, Inc. and changed its name to Meta Platforms, Inc. in October 2021. Meta Platforms, Inc. was incorporated in 2004 and is headquartered in Menlo Park, California.
Intel Corporation designs, develops, manufactures, markets, and sells computing and related products and services worldwide. It operates through Client Computing Group, Data Center and AI, Network and Edge, Mobileye, and Intel Foundry Services segments. The company's products portfolio comprises central processing units and chipsets, system-on-chips (SoCs), and multichip packages; mobile and desktop processors; hardware products comprising graphics processing units (GPUs), domain-specific accelerators, and field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs); and memory and storage, connectivity and networking, and other semiconductor products. It also offers silicon devices and software products; and optimization solutions for workloads, such as AI, cryptography, security, storage, networking, and leverages various features supporting diverse compute environments. In addition, the company develops and deploys advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), and autonomous driving technologies and solutions; and provides advanced process technologies backed by an ecosystem of IP, EDA, and design services, as well as systems of chips, including advanced packaging technologies, software and accelerate bring-up, and integration of chips and driving standards. Further, it delivers and deploys intelligent edge platforms that allow developers to achieve agility and drive automation using AI for efficient operations with data integrity, as well as provides hardware and software platforms, tools, and ecosystem partnerships for digital transformation from the cloud to edge. The company serves original equipment manufacturers, original design manufacturers, cloud service providers, and other manufacturers and service providers. It has a strategic agreement with Synopsys, Inc. to develop EDA and IP solutions; and ARM that enables chip designers to build optimized compute SoCs on the Intel 18A process. Intel Corporation was incorporated in 1968 and is headquartered in Santa Clara, California.
Microsoft Corporation develops and supports software, services, devices and solutions worldwide. The Productivity and Business Processes segment offers office, exchange, SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, office 365 Security and Compliance, Microsoft viva, and Microsoft 365 copilot; and office consumer services, such as Microsoft 365 consumer subscriptions, Office licensed on-premises, and other office services. This segment also provides LinkedIn; and dynamics business solutions, including Dynamics 365, a set of intelligent, cloud-based applications across ERP, CRM, power apps, and power automate; and on-premises ERP and CRM applications. The Intelligent Cloud segment offers server products and cloud services, such as azure and other cloud services; SQL and windows server, visual studio, system center, and related client access licenses, as well as nuance and GitHub; and enterprise services including enterprise support services, industry solutions, and nuance professional services. The More Personal Computing segment offers Windows, including windows OEM licensing and other non-volume licensing of the Windows operating system; Windows commercial comprising volume licensing of the Windows operating system, windows cloud services, and other Windows commercial offerings; patent licensing; and windows Internet of Things; and devices, such as surface, HoloLens, and PC accessories. Additionally, this segment provides gaming, which includes Xbox hardware and content, and first- and third-party content; Xbox game pass and other subscriptions, cloud gaming, advertising, third-party disc royalties, and other cloud services; and search and news advertising, which includes Bing, Microsoft News and Edge, and third-party affiliates. The company sells its products through OEMs, distributors, and resellers; and directly through digital marketplaces, online, and retail stores. The company was founded in 1975 and is headquartered in Redmond, Washington.
Netflix, Inc. provides entertainment services. It offers TV series, documentaries, feature films, and games across various genres and languages. The company also provides members the ability to receive streaming content through a host of internet-connected devices, including TVs, digital video players, TV set-top boxes, and mobile devices. It has operations in approximately 190 countries. The company was incorporated in 1997 and is headquartered in Los Gatos, California.
Veeva Systems Inc. provides cloud-based software for the life sciences industry. It offers Veeva Commercial Cloud, a suite of software and analytics solutions, such as Veeva customer relationship management (CRM) that enable customer-facing employees at pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies; Veeva Vault PromoMats, an end-to-end content and digital asset management solution; Veeva Vault Medical that provides source of medical content across multiple channels and geographies; Veeva Crossix, an analytics platform for pharmaceutical brands; Veeva OpenData, a customer reference data solution; Veeva Link, a data application that allows link to generate real-time intelligence; and Veeva Compass includes de-identified and longitudinal patient data for the United States. The company also provides Veeva Development Cloud, a suite of applications for the clinical, regulatory, quality, and safety functions, including Veeva Vault Clinical, Veeva Vault RIM, Veeva Vault Safety, and Veeva Vault Quality; Veeva QualityOne, a quality and document management, and training solution; Veeva RegulatoryOne, a solution that helps companies to manage regulatory submission content; and Veeva Claims addresses the end-to-end product and marketing claims management process. In addition, it offers professional and support services, including implementation and deployment planning and project management; requirements analysis, solution design, and configuration; systems environment management and deployment services; services focused on advancing or transforming business and operating processes related to Veeva solutions; data migration and systems integrations technical consulting services; training on its solutions; and ongoing managed services, such as outsourced systems administration. The company was formerly known as Verticals onDemand, Inc. and changed its name to Veeva Systems Inc. in April 2009. Veeva Systems Inc. was incorporated in 2007 and is headquartered in Pleasanton, California.
Xerox Holdings Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a workplace technology company that integrates hardware, services, and software for enterprises in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, India, and internationally. The company operates through two segments, Print and Other; and FITTLE. The Print and Other segment designs, develops, and sells document systems, solutions, and services; and IT and software products and services. The FITTLE segment offers financing solutions for direct channel customer purchases; and lease financing to end-users. It also offers workplace solutions comprising desktop monochrome, color, and multifunction printers, and ConnectKey software; digital printing presses and light production devices; and digital services that support workflow automation, personalization and communication software, content management solutions, and digitization services. In addition, the company provides graphic communications, in-plant, and production solutions; FreeFlow, a software solutions for the automation and integration of processing of print job comprising file preparation, final production, and electronic publishing; and IT services, end user computing devices, network infrastructure, and communications technology, as well as technology product support, professional engineering, and commercial robotic process automation. Further, it sells paper products and standalone software, such as CareAR, DocuShare, and XMPie; and invests in startups. The company sells its products through its direct sales force, distributors, independent agents, dealers, value-added resellers, systems integrators, and e-commerce marketplaces. The company was formerly known as Xerox Corporation and changed its name to Xerox Holdings Corporation in August 2019. Xerox Holdings Corporation was founded in 1903 and is headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut.
What ETFs track the information technology sector?
Popular ETFs that track the information technology sector include:
Fidelity MSCI Information Technology Index ETF (FTEC)
First Trust ISE Cloud Computing Index Fund (SKYY)
First Trust NASDAQ CEA Cybersecurity ETF (CIBR)
First Trust Technology AlphaDEX Fund (FXL)
Global X Cloud Computing ETF (CLOU)
iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF (IGV)
iShares PHLX Semiconductor ETF (SOXX)
iShares U.S. Technology ETF (IYW)
Technology Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLK)
VanEck Vectors Semiconductor ETF (SMH)
Vanguard Information Technology ETF (VGT)
How is the information technology sector performing?
The graph below tracks how the Technology Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLK) has performed over the last five years. Tracking ETF performance can offer insight into how a stock sector as a whole is performing.
Why invest in the information technology sector?
There’s no way around it — information technology is an exciting space. Investing in the tech sector offers investors the opportunity to buy shares in real-world tech they use everyday. And the sector is so comprehensive that there’s plenty of room to diversify, whether you delve into hardware, software or semiconductors. If you can afford it, you can opt for one of the tried-and-tested blue chips, like Facebook, Google, Microsoft or Amazon. The problem with these tech monoliths? Not all pay dividends. Though some companies in the tech sector give back to their investors, some investors get into the tech industry for a different reason: growth potential. Technology is the largest segment of the market. With a solid grasp of the company you plan to invest in and its competitors, a nimble investor has the opportunity to make money in the tech sector by investing in small companies on an upward trajectory.
What unique risks does the information technology sector face?
The excitement that punctuates the technology sector gives way to fierce competition — a competition that fuels company acquisitions. Software tends to do well in a bull market, but during an economic downturn, companies can fold overnight. The opportunity for profit in the tech sector is accompanied by volatility — and this volatility has the potential to tank investments and cripple portfolios. The tech sector is also vulnerable to government jurisdiction, as evidenced by the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation. Facebook was pulled in front of Congress, demonstrating that tech giants aren’t immune to regulation. Investors need to keep their finger on the pulse of the news to stay ahead of potentially damaging economic and political events.
How do mergers and acquisitions affect tech stocks?
Mergers and acquisitions can occur in any sector but are especially common in the tech industry. Mergers can trigger volatility within the sector, both for the companies affected and for competitors. If you own stock in a company that’s acquired by another company, one of three things may happen to your shares:
All-cash deal. Your shares disappear from your account and you’re reimbursed with cash.
All-stock deal. Your shares disappear from your account in exchange for shares of the purchasing company.
Combination deal. Your shares disappear from your account and you receive a combination of cash and stock of the purchasing company.
When acquisitions occur, the companies announce the deal and shareholders can vote to approve the deal. Acquiring companies are typically willing to pay more than the asset’s current market price to encourage shareholders to approve the deal. Once approved, regulators clear the deal. What does this look like in real life? Back in 2016, AT&T acquired Time Warner. Time Warner shareholders were offered a combination deal valued at $107.50 per share. In exchange for their Time Warner stock, shareholders were given $53.75 cash and $53.75 in AT&T stock. If you receive stock of the purchasing company during an acquisition, you’re not required to keep it. Shareholders can sell their shares at any time.
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Bottom line
The information technology sector offers investors the opportunity to back the hardware and software they use everyday. It’s an exciting field but it’s prone to volatility — especially during a down market. Explore trading platforms for the account best suited to your investment needs.
Frequently asked questions
Some companies in the tech sector pay dividends, including IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, Cisco and Apple.
The tech sector is the largest single segment of the market. In 2020, the US tech market is estimated to be worth $1.7 trillion.
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Shannon Terrell is a lead writer and spokesperson at NerdWallet and a former editor at Finder, specializing in personal finance. Her writing and analysis on investing and banking has been featured in Bloomberg, Global News, Yahoo Finance, GoBankingRates and Black Enterprise. She holds a bachelor’s degree in communications and English literature from the University of Toronto Mississauga. See full bio
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