COVID-19

Droughts can be devastating.  Avocado farmers in Southern Spain are dealing with a difficult one now.  The change is so dramatic that according to this Bloomberg article, one 86-year-old farmer has decided to take down 2,500 trees, now using th

Climbing a mountain implies a single direction: up.  Yes, from time to time you might reach a false summit that then dips lower for a bit, but the general direction of travel is up.  Inflation isn’t much different.  During your entire life, there have only been rare exceptions to the rising climb.

He wasn’t an economist or even market pundit, but the Greek philosopher Heraclitus might have made a living in the profession were he alive today.  He is known at Atlas for his pithy quote which translates roughly to, “change is the only constant in life.” 

Are we in a drought or not?  It depends on where you live.  According to the map above, virtually all of California is not.  Those living to the southeast of the Golden State are not so lucky.  How did this come to be?  An excess of rain last year in California helped.  However, the West Coast probably shouldn’t act as if the current state of water will last

Telling stories is what humans do.  No two people have an exact telling about the same event.  Thoughts on the economy are no different.  There is a “Truth” but none of us have the luxury of knowing all.  Instead, we each have our own truths.  These aren’t intentionally deceptive.  Instead, they become manufactured and colored by our own experienc

Trends never move in straight lines. This is certainly observable in markets. Styles experience the same phenomenon. Perhaps the kernel of a trend is revealed at a fashion show, but it takes the greater population a little time to embrace the new look. A similar pattern is emerging for the globe as it tries trending back to something more normal from the depths of the pandem

What drives a trend?  I think in short, its human psychology.  Take the trend in pets for instance.  Out of seemingly nowhere, “small animals” have become all the rage.  In a survey from the American Pet Products Association, it was noted that last year 6.2 million households kept small an

Petri dish metaphors are totally appropriate for an economics-oriented note during a global pandemic.  Julius Richard Petri invented the eponymously named Petri dish.  This simple tool is used along with a growth medium to culture cells of things like mosses, yeasts, bacteria, and fungi.

Atlas tries hard to avoid controversial topics.  We exist to help clients manage risk through a variety of environments using a proprietary method of market analysis.  But we’ll tangentially touch on topic today that comes with some contention here in America because the title above was too good not to use: Masks.