As quoted in Politico Morning Money: Why markets ignore Trump By BEN WHITE (bwhite@politico.com; @morningmoneyben), AUBREE ELIZA WEAVER (aweaver@politico.com; @AubreeEWeaver) 08/23/2018 08:00 AM EDT

Merlin Asset Management’s Michael Obuchowski: “The markets (or at least myself, a tiny part of it) are not that unhappy with what is going on in US politics. Here is the very short and simplified outline of my thinking:

“In general, my preferred situation in Washington is a stalemate. I don’t like anybody to have supermajority or control of House, Senate and the White House. Despite all the political hysteria and noise, two very important things happened since the presidential election: Lower corporate taxes with ability to bring offshore earnings into the US and the broad deregulation effort.

“One might have very legitimate problems with some of the deregulatory efforts, but this deregulatory environment had a huge positive effect on the animal spirits for smaller US businesses. … The boneheaded tariffs evolving into trade war have become the biggest threat to the US economic and global growth …

“If we have a Democratic House and a Republican Senate, together with a politically damaged president, nothing will get done in Washington – preserving the lower corporate tax rates and more or less continuing the deregulatory environment.

GOLDILOCKS DC? — “For me, the DC stalemate combined with fading Trade Wars, no change in corporate taxes and deregulatory air in Washington would be something of a ‘Washington Goldilocks’ situation, so I am watching everything very closely. My biases and preferences are very clear and in many ways, so far so good.”