Chicago Federal Reserve President Charles Evans on Wednesday reiterated that it will take until the middle of next year to complete the Fed's wind-down of its bond-buying program even as the central bank checks to see if high inflation recedes as he expects.

       "We learned back in 2013 that tapering these asset purchases was preferable for financial market functioning; that if we did a sudden stop on our purchases that wasn't well received," Evans said at a virtual conference by the Mid-Size Bank Coalition of America.

       "It's going to take us until the middle of next year to complete that; we are going to be mindful of inflation; we're going to be looking to see how much additional accommodation is boosting inflation; if indeed that is the case, we'll be thinking about when the right time to start raising rates will be."

       Evans' timeline reflects the central bank's guidance last month when it announced the beginning of the end of its asset purchasing program, put in place as the pandemic bore down on the U.S. economy in March 2020 but now seen as overly stimulative.- Reuters