Yeah, it often seems like there's larger players that are either in the know or have ways to conclude the most probable outcome of set news events on a pretty consistent basis. I will say though that the Weekly chart is pretty bearish and has / does look similar to 2008 during the mortgage crisis. So, macro trend was already as bearish as it's been in literally 14 years. In addition NQ/ES were also near resistance from a daily perspective, by almost any TA analysis give or take just saying general area. So, point is any type of catalyst, particularly negative doesn't take a genius to see the probability would be greater that we go down, than up. To me this 100% was a decision making point and the fate of today which was down has a very high probability of being the macro direction we ultimately continue in over the next weeks, if not months. Just a side note maybe irrelevant but: Not sure if you or others noticed this but when I was trading the price action on Monday you could tell it was a little weird, it was acting bearish and in a lot of the rooms and other places I keep an eye on a lot of people saw the action as bearish. Yet, the TA at least how I use it was saying pretty high odds we take out the last ES highs (which we did late / right after session ended Monday). Of course this is speculation but at the time it seemed like they were forcing shorts to cover. Which of course is easier for me to say this in hindsight, but does make sense as that would provide more liquidity to sell into by shorts becoming buyers, plus enticing new longs to go for a break out trade above Daily resistances.
Put it this way. There are points on the charts where buyers and sellers and likely to step-in. For instance, with the release of the CPI data, there was a specific point on the chart that was a clear area of selling pressure and price tapped into that area before the sharp sell-off. If you can pinpoint those areas, you can tell where market is likely to turn.
Sometimes the market moves before the news announcement. Sometimes the market moves after the news is announced. Sometimes the market doesn't care about the news.