The Consumer Price Index flashed across our screens in big red letters. Like a gunshot in a crowd. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fainted. It was falling nearly 300 points in less than an hour before finally gaining its composure.

It's not that this was unexpected. All of Wall Street predicted that the CPI would take a big jump. But the surprise was that Inflation came in above 9%, a level that almost none of the analysts thought likely.