Sparkling Economic Shrinkage
By: Matt Garrott The S&P 500 was up 9.2% in July. Year-to-date, the index is down 12.6% and down 5% over the last 12 months. Bonds have taken a beating this year, too, with the Bloomberg US Aggregate Bond Index down 7.7% and muni bonds down 4.6%. Economic data dominated the headlines, however. [...]