New Delhi, March 21 -- Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

As the U.S-Israel "excursion" into Iran, to use President Donald Trump's description, ended its third week, investors could find no shelter in the usual hedges of bonds and gold as the stock market posted its fourth straight losing week.

Only cash, in U.S. dollars, provided protection as the Federal Reserve and other major central banks signaled they were disinclined to provide relief in the form of interest-rate reductions. Indeed, expectations about future rate moves have flipped as the rise in oil prices makes the central banks' inflation problem only stickier.

On Friday, futures markets, which before the start of the Iran war on Feb. 28 had priced in two quarter-point Fed cuts...