07:20 PM EDT, 06/22/2024 (MT Newswires) -- RBC Economics on Friday said it expects inflation likely eased in May, expecting Statistics Canada on Tuesday to report the consumer price index fell to 2.6% last month from 2.7% in May.

If RBC is right, May will be the fifth-straight month inflation has stayed within the Bank of Canada's 1% to 3% target range and could support another 25-basis point cut to interest rates at the central bank's next interest-rate announcement on July 24.

"Gasoline prices eased in May alongside lower global oil prices, and food price growth likely continued to move lower. But, the BoC will be focused on their preferred core measures for evidence that a broadly based slowdown in price growth in 2024 is continuing. The closely watched three-month rolling averages for the CPI-trim and CPI-median measures will likely tick higher but remain relatively low after unusually soft readings left both under the 2% inflation target over the last two months. The breadth of inflation pressures has continued to ease with the share of consumer products seeing inflation above a 3% annual rate back close to its historical rate in April. A softening economic growth backdrop has made it more likely that Canadian inflation pressures will not reaccelerate the way they did in the United States earlier this year," Nathan Janzen, RBC's Assistant Chief Economist, noted.