Sector Indices in 2026: What Sorting by Change Measures, and What It Hides

The list below ranks the sector indices of the Russian market by one single criterion: the change in each index's value over 2026, from highest to lowest. It answers the question "which sectors has the market re-rated more than the rest", and nothing else. One important caveat up front: the year is not over yet. Today is 27 October 2026, so the "result for the year" here runs from the first trading day to the latest available calculation date. The figures in the table are recalculated every time the page is served, so the order of the rows may be different tomorrow while the text stays the same.

What exactly is measured

The criterion is the relative change in the value of a sector index over the period. A sector index is calculated from a basket of the sector's securities. Each security carries a weight, the weight depends on market capitalisation adjusted for the share of stock in free float, and the exchange reviews the composition of the basket on its own schedule. This leads to a consequence that is most often overlooked: the index does not measure the "average stock in the sector" but the weighted re-rating of the sector, in which the largest issuer drags the result along almost single-handedly. If a sector has one heavyweight by capitalisation and a scattering of small names, the index's performance is first and foremost that heavyweight's performance.

The second thing to know about the criterion itself is that sector indices are price indices. They capture the movement of quotes, not total return with distributions reinvested. A sector whose companies traditionally return cash to shareholders generously will systematically look more modest in this ranking than it actually was for the holder of the shares: part of the result went into the shareholder's account and was subtracted from the index value through the dividend gap. Comparing "dividend" sectors with growth sectors on this list therefore means comparing them on a playing field that is tilted from the start. Upcoming payouts and past record dates are best checked separately, in the dividend calendar.

Why an index row is not a verdict on the sector

A sector index is an aggregate with a narrow constituent list. A sector may have few listed names, sometimes literally a handful, and a single corporate event — a re-rating after results, a change in the ownership structure, a trading suspension, a change of weight at a rebalancing — moves the whole row. Such a move looks like "the sector went up", when in substance what happened was an event at one individual issuer.

It also follows that "the sector got more expensive" and "the sector's business improved" are different statements. The index records the price the market is willing to pay, not revenue, debt or capacity utilisation. The gap between price and operating results is exactly what the financial statements reveal: a summary of company filings is in the reports section, while the constituents and quotes of the sector's securities are in the list of stocks.

What this ranking does not allow you to conclude

• You cannot conclude that the top of the list is "where to invest". The ranking looks backwards and orders a re-rating that has already happened; a high position means the sector's shares have become more expensive, not that they have remained cheap.
• You cannot conclude that the bottom of the list is a "sale". A sector may have fallen precisely because its earnings shrank more than its price.
• You cannot compare rows by risk. The change over the year says nothing about the volatility with which it was achieved: a steady rise and a rollercoaster with a deep drawdown produce the same number in this column.
• You cannot transfer a conclusion from the index to a particular security within it. Within a single sector, the spread between issuers is sometimes wider than the spread between sectors.
• You cannot treat the period as complete. There are still trading days left before the end of 2026, and the order of the rows can still shift.

How to read the list

The table is most useful read not from top to bottom but by its spread: how tightly the rows are bunched. When sectors sit close together, the market moved on a broad front, most likely driven by a common factor: the key rate, the exchange rate, tax decisions, sentiment in the debt market. When there is a yawning gap between the top and the bottom, it was a sector-driven year: money was rotating between sectors, and the cause has to be sought in specific events rather than in the general backdrop. The OFZ section helps to set this against developments in the bond market: government bond yields are the backdrop against which the market re-rates equities.

A second useful technique is to check a sector's row against the event feed. A sector index almost never earns its annual result smoothly; it does so on a few dates: a results day, a rate decision day, a news day at a key issuer. These days can be seen in the news feed and in the daily market reviews, which show what exactly paid for the move. The terms that appear in descriptions of the methodology — free float, weight, rebalancing — are explained in the glossary.

What this article does not cover

We do not have data on the calculation methodology of each individual sector index: the rules for weighting and reviewing the constituents are published by the exchange, and it is the exchange's document, not this page, that should be consulted. Nor is there a quarter-by-quarter breakdown of the annual change here: the ranking returns a single column for the entire period, and the intermediate trajectory is not preserved in it. If you need that trajectory, it has to be assembled from the daily trading results.