I value the price action going into a big "event" like CPI a lot.
Example: We pump into the event. In that case there's often a lot more longs in the system and fewer shorts. Any "negative" surprise would lead to a more extreme move down. We have seen this occur a lot.

The opposite is true if the market sells off into the event. This means there's likely been a lot of hedging and/or selling in fear of what it will end up being.
In this case "negative" data will likely still cause a sell-off but to a much lower degree.

The price action into these events also tells a lot about sentiment and positioning.
For the Q2 earnings for example, expectations were often so bad that even when companies only slightly missed EPS/Revenue, the stock still ended up going up due to expectations being even worse.

Things like these are good to keep in mind when you're trading around these economic data events.
Simple:
Market up into event = Longs more vulnerable.
Market down into event = Shorts more vulnerable.
Market sideways = No advantage either way.