“It’s a win, and goodness knows we needed a win,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “Sept. 11 set off a chain of events that cost us dearly. It’s a key reason for the Lost Decade we just had.”

Through Monday’s trading indices such as the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the value of the U.S. dollar and the price of a barrel of oil have reacted only mildly to bin Laden’s death.

That comes as little surprise to market watchers who note that the fundamentals driving these numbers—strong corporate profits, unrest in the Middle East, the soaring U.S. debt—are not altered by bin Laden’s demise.