It wasn't a triple witching hour, with three sets of bad news hitting the same day. However, between a better-than-expected inflation read on one hand and indications the Federal Reserve backed off from two to one possible rate cuts on the other, call it a double vertigo day.

First, the better news. The Consumer Price Index came in lower than the expectations collected by Dow Jones. Inflation was flat over April, slightly lower than the projected 0.1% increase. Year over year, the CPI was 3.3% instead of the expected 3.4%. Core CPI was 0.2% month over month, not 0.3% as projected. Even better, core CPI, without food or energy, was 3.4% year-over-year as economists expected 3.5%.

Plus, "the largest category of services inflation, shelter costs continued to rise at a buoyant 0.4% m/m and 5.4% y/y as residential rental cost maintain a strong pace of increase (up 0.4% on the month)," Nationwide Chief Economist Kathy Bostjancic wrote in an emailed note this morning. "We still expect rental inflation to ease going forward, but it has remained higher than real-time new rental data have suggested for much of the past year."