The Strait Squeeze

2026-03-22 09:00:00 ET

Real Estate Weekly Outlook

U.S. equity markets fell for a fourth straight week—while benchmark interest rates jumped to eight-month highs—as continued turmoil in the Middle East rattled financial markets and revived concerns about energy-driven inflation. The third week of the Iran conflict settled into an uneasy equilibrium between escalation and de-escalation amid a continued standstill in the Strait of Hormuz - the key global energy supply chokepoint. Washington dug deeper into the playbook to counteract the surge in global energy prices, invoking the Jones Act domestically while escalating pressure abroad through strikes on Iran’s Kharg Island oil export hub and signaling that ground troop deployments remain on the table if disruptions to the Strait persist. The Federal Reserve - long bemoaning tariff-related inflation that largely failed to materialize - did little to calm markets, delivering a “hawkish hold” that pushed traders to price in rate hikes by year-end as legitimate energy-driven inflation risks reemerge....

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