Fireworks Friday

As the Fourth of July approached, America’s sky prepared to display vividly colored fireworks in rhythmic fashion, a spectacle that reminds one of the ebbs and flows of our economy.  Just as fireworks launch into the night, so too does our economic activity, bursting with energy and brightness during periods of prosperity. The sizzle and crackle of sparklers reflect the bustling activity of the market; each spark a transaction, each flicker a trade.  The grand finale, much like our economic peaks, fills the sky with a cacophony of light and sound, a testament to the culmination of economic growth and consumer confidence.

As of this writing, the fuse was lit.  Consumers were expected to torch $100 million more yesterday than a year earlier.  This puts the expected explosion of spending at $2.4 billion, with most of that coming from consumer fireworks revenue according to the American Pyrotechnics Association, an organization which is ironically headquartered in Southern California, an area known of firework restrictions.  Enough digressing, let’s get back to the stats.  For some context, revenue for fireworks was $610 million in 2000.  Back then, consumers purchased $407 million of that total.  In 2019, their outlays reached $1 billion, but a year later (and under lock down due to the pandemic) it nearly doubled to $1.9 billion.  Since then, it remained greater than $2.0 billion, including $2.2 billion last year (with just $500 million coming from display fireworks).

America is in the middle of economic growth, even if it is uneven.  Yet at some point, embers will fade into the darkness of an inevitable economic cooldown.  The economy will get cloudy, like a firework staging area after the grand finale.  And then the cloudiness will dissipate.  The mortars of the economy will get reloaded, and the next spark will ignite another round of booms.  Atlas still believes in the magic of this nation and hopes you do as well. Have a wonderful Friday.