The S&P 500 tracks 500 of the largest companies trading on U.S. exchanges. The index includes value stocks and growth stocks from all 11 market sectors, as defined by the Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS), and it covers about 80% of the domestic equities market.

Somewhat surprisingly, only one GICS market sector outperformed the S&P 500 over the last five years. Here's what investors should know.

Detailed below are the 11 stock market sectors and their returns over the last five years. For context, the S&P 500 returned a total of 70% during that time period.

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Source Fool.com