Investors need to understand not only the backward-looking data, such as CPI and other metrics, but also forward-looking expectations, like TIPS, to be successful.

Follow along to MarketWatch's coverage of the consumer price index data due to be released by the Labor Department.

A fresh readout on consumer prices will be one of the last big data releases before next week's Federal Reserve meeting, at which policy makers are likely to make the first in a series of rate cuts. A surprisingly weak reading would bolster the case for the Fed to move faster in easing policy,