The House Speaker Tussle Is Just a Warm-Up for the Main Event: The Debt Ceiling Battle

The battle over the speaker of the House of Representatives is something not seen for a century or more. But the more relevant precedent for investors might be 2011, when the drawn-out struggle to raise the nation’s debt ceiling threatened to trigger a financial crisis and culminated in a major rating agency stripping the U.S. of its top triple-A credit status.

Indeed, the debate over who will be the next speaker is just a proxy fight over what could shape up to be a toxic battle to raise the debt ceiling later this year, according to Strategas Research Partners’ Washington analysis team, led by Daniel Clifton.