Macro investor and the founder and CEO of Azuria Capital LLC, Otavio Costa, is slamming the Federal Reserve‘s latest inflation narrative, accusing the central bank of using curated data to justify premature interest rate cuts while actual living costs continue to soar.
‘Useless’ Metric
The controversy centers on the St. Louis Fed’s recent promotion of the Trimmed-Mean PCE inflation rate—a metric closely associated with former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh. Data released for March 2026 showed this measure ticking up only slightly to 2.36%.
However, critics argue this alternative measure of core inflation intentionally masks the reality of surging prices by stripping out extreme price fluctuations from the data.
“The St. Louis Fed now posting Kevin Warsh’s useless inflation metric,” Costa stated recently on social media. “That’s how far these guys have to go to justify cutting rates while inflation is picking back up.”
Costa highlighted a stark market divergence to prove his point: while the trimmed-mean metric paints a picture of stabilizing prices, the broader commodities sector is experiencing a massive upward spike.
By actively ignoring volatile categories—which invariably affect essential consumer goods—critics argue the metric fails to reflect the true economic pressures facing everyday households.
This post was originally published here
