Material Industry Profile _ (edit/improve) Any company that makes its money through the mining and selling of physical materials of the earth is in the materials sector. Given that most everything on the planet is made from some kind of material, this sector is very vast. It is helpful for the individual to refer to a particular material when they are referring a particular company. Sometimes this is not possible, because one company might operate in more than one material. Based on this complexity, any company making money this way has been deemed a materials stock. The materials sector is probably more vast than any other sector. It is difficult to define what one might expect in the typical stock in this sector. There really is no typical stock in this sector. The investor is best off giving the sector a detailed look before making the decision to invest.