With two weeks left in August, the global bond market has already delivered its biggest monthly loss since 2010 as reports from unemployment to consumer purchases suggest the worldwide economy is stronger than investors anticipated.

From government to corporate to mortgage securities, fixed-income assets have declined 0.64 percent this month, the worst performance since a 1.09 percent loss in November 2010, according to the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Broad Market Index. At the same time, global stocks returned 2.9 percent, including reinvested dividends.

Bonds are losing value after retail sales and jobs gained more than forecast, and Germany and France slowed less than economists estimated. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. says the Federal Reserve will now likely wait until late this year or early 2013 rather than September to add more stimulus by purchasing bonds in a policy known as quantitative easing, or QE.