Two more interest rate hikes likely in 2016, Fed´s Evans says

The US central bank was moving cautiously on monetary policy tightening due to increased global risks, a top policymaker said, with even a June rate hike being seen as possibly too soon.

"I would say the threshhold for having confidence that inflation is sustainably moving up towards our 2.0% inflation target is pretty high. I´d be surprised if we met that condition, myself, in April," the president of the Federal Reserve bank of Chicago, Charles Evans, told CNBC on Wednesday.

He added he would not be concerned if it breached that target, the broadcaster reported.

"Of course, we won´t want it to get out of hand. I don´t think we´re looking at anything like that in the US," he said.

Nevertheless, if the economic data came in stronger than expected, then "everybody would adjust upwards", Evans added.

In response to the fact that financial markets were only discounting one interest rate hike in 2016, Evans said "I thought Yellen was great yesterday when she said, "the dots aren´t set in stone. There´s a lot of conditionality"".

Evans´s forecast was for two further 25 basis point interest rate hikes in 2016.

A move in June would be based on further improvement in the jobs market, but "I don´t think we want to get ahead of ourselves," he sentenced.

For him, driving unemployment a little bit lower was a policy option as that would make for good conditions in which consumption could grow.

Nonetheless, he was a "little nervous" about fixed investment, given that the US had become an energy producer over the previous ten to 15 years.