The first half of the year is in the books. Following its best quarterly performance in nearly ten years in the first quarter, the S&P 500 returned 3.8 percent in the second quarter. For the first half of 2019, the S&P 500 returned 17.3 percent.According to the Select Sector SPDR exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that divide the S&P 500 into sector index funds, every sector gained in the first half of the year. However, there were steep sell-offs during the second quarter of crude oil and natural gas. The price declines caused the energy…
