The ongoing drama in the debt-ceiling negotiations is interesting political theater. Talk radio types and political news show hosts love it. That’s because the personal dynamics between President Obama and Republican Congressional leaders makes for good copy. Now, I am not saying that this isn’t a serious issue. It most definitely is serious; however, the reaction so far on Main Street has been much more intense than it has been on Wall Street.

In fact, judging by the recent action in the market, you wouldn’t even know there was any kind of threat of the United States essentially defaulting on its debt. Now, my opinion here is that Wall Street is not reacting to the debt deliberations because Wall Street knows that a deal is going to get done, period. All of the drama going on now is politics, and the markets know it.

I recently had a subscriber to my Successful Investing advisory service ask me why I wasn’t ringing the alarm bells over the debt-ceiling issue. The reason why is that this issue, in terms of the market, has so far been a nonissue. Yet more importantly, what my subscriber has failed to take solace in is the fact that if the market suddenly fell sharply because of a failure to reach a deal on the debt, then his money would be protected from any damage via the stop-loss prices we place on every position that we enter.

The simple step of having a stop-loss in place to protect you if the market does begin to react negatively to the debt-ceiling talks is really all the protection that you need in the short run.

Now, I do admit that the constant borrow-and-spend policies adopted by both parties in Washington is a long-term threat to the fiscal health of the republic, but in terms of the immediate debt-ceiling issue, we haven’t approached any kind of cause for market worry.

Until the equity and bond markets prove otherwise, I recommend that you turn down the worry knob on this issue.