05:26 AM EDT, 03/23/2026 (MT Newswires) -- US equity investors will remain focused on the war in Iran and its impact on crude oil following President Donald Trump's Monday deadline for Tehran to open the Strait of Hormuz, as investor's price in interest rate increases amid inflation concerns.

* Trump said Saturday he would order the bombardment of Iran's power plants if the Strait of Hormuz is not fully open to shipping within 48 hours, CNN reported. Iran again vowed retaliation if Trump follows through on his threat. "If you strike electricity, we will strike electricity," Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps was cited as saying in the CNN news report.

* Oil prices have jumped by more than 45% since the start of the war, Deutsche Bank said in a Friday note. Previous large shocks saw prices surge by a median 30% during the first Gulf War in 1990, the Iraq War in 2003, and the Russia-Ukraine War in 2022. "The extent of overvaluation was surpassed only at the peak of the 2022 shock."

* Jefferies said in a Friday note that it anticipates energy goods in the Consumer Price Index will drive the year-over-year increases in the headline CPI from 2.43% in February to 3.45% in March and 3.80% in April, undoing two years of disinflationary progress towards the Federal Reserve's 2% target.

* All US Treasury yields were up early Monday, with the 10-year climbing 1.9 basis points to 4.41%.

* According to the CME FedWatch tool, the probability that the Fed will raise interest rates by 25 basis points this year jumped early Monday, compared with no chance at all a week earlier.

* "Market participants have materially altered expectations for interest rates since Wednesday's FOMC meeting, no longer pricing in rate cuts and now pricing in a potential rate hike," according to a Stifel note Friday.