INDUSTRY GROUP

Classification method for companies or organizations usually categorized according to common lines of business. Even though there is no official standard for such classification, Investor's Business Daily has a proprietary model familiar to 197 industry groups. Reuter's Baseline has a model too, with some 185 groups. Most designations will have a total of between 150 and 200 groups. The total of industry groups capturing almost all of the economy that can be gauged by the GDP.