The pound has fallen on uncertainty about Tony Blair's remaining tenure as British Prime Minister but any longer-term impact on UK assets should be short-lived if Finance Minister Gordon Brown replaces him.
Confident in an independent central bank, investors are unlikely to sell British assets extensively unless there is a long leadership battle which suggests Mr Brown - the hot favourite - won't win, casting doubt on the future direction of policy.
"We've known Blair was on his way out. The economic picture is not going to change, especially with Brown in charge," one City stock dealer said.
Having led the Labour party to three successive election victories, Mr Blair has long said he will not fight another election and will give a successor "ample time" to bed in before an election expected in 2009.
But pressure from within the party - peaking with the resignation of a junior minister and seven government aides - has fired up debate about whether Mr Blair goes in about a year, when he wants, or much earlier.
Market reaction has mainly been on the foreign exchanges, where sterling has weakened as the political crisis has built. The FTSE-100 has fallen, but on other factors, notably concerns about US interest rates. Gilts have been unmoved by it all.
Analysts reckon Mr Blair's troubles could keep hurting sterling over the next few days. "You would expect a degree of political uncertainty weighing on sterling," said David Page, an economist at Investec.
But otherwise, if a Brown succession looked assured, ensuring continuity of economic policy as the 55-year-old Scot has been Mr Blair's Finance Minister since 1997, markets are likely to take it all in their stride.
"In terms of evaluation of the equity market and the bond market, I don't thing there will be any significant impact," said Chris Iggo, senior strategist at AXA Investment Managers.
The potential cloud is if the Blair-to-Brown transition gets derailed.
"Markets are fairly happy with the idea that Blair will hand over to Brown but may start to get nervous if this scenario is questioned," said Jonathan Loynes, chief UK economist at Capital Economics.
So far other credible candidates have not openly declared their hand but some Labour members insist there must be a leadership election to decide the future direction of the party.
But even then, with monetary policy now in the hands of an independent Bank of England, Labour's masterstroke when it came to power in 1997, the days of savage market reaction to political change seems a lifetime away. Giorgio Radaelli, chief strategist at Switzerland-based wealth manager BSI, said it was "a distant memory" when British political turmoil disrupted investment.
"It is not a factor which concerns us at all because I don't thing there would be a significant enough change in policy to change the outlook for UK equities," he said.
Even when, in not dissimilar circumstances, Margaret Thatcher gave way to John Major in 1990, markets generally kept their poise.
"You'd have to argue, if anything, that markets took it relatively calmly," said Simon Derrick head of currency research at Bank of New York.
Meanwhile the pound, which has lost about 1.3 per cent against the dollar and one per cent against the euro in the last week, could remain vulnerable until the succession row is settled.
"From an interest rate perspective, the environment is looking favourable to sterling in the near term," said Audrey Childe-Freeman, senior European economist at CIBC World Markets.
"Once the political uncertainty is removed, market participants will refocus on the economy and the monetary policy outlook in particular."
Stephen Lewis, chief economist at Insinger de Beaufort, looked a little further ahead.
The chief question for markets, he said, was who will be the next Chancellor of the Exchequer, replacing Mr Brown.
With Mr Brown's protege and close ally, Ed Balls, tipped to become Finance Minister sooner or later, policy continuity looks assured their too.