'Pretty High Hurdle' Before Easing: Fed's Bullard

U.S. Federal Reserve policymakers still see a "pretty high hurdle" before they would unleash a third round of quantitative easing, or QE3, a top Fed official said on Friday.

Tetra Images | Getty Images United States Federal Reserve

Speaking two days after the U.S. central bank decided to take a more modest policy step to help the flailing economic recovery, St. Louis Fed Bank President James Bullard said the Fed has done "what it can do."

"QE3 I think is viewed as still having a pretty high hurdle," Bullard said on Bloomberg TV. "We can do that, and I think it would be effective, but we would be taking a lot more risk on our balance sheet and we'd be going further into unchartered territory."

The Fed on Wednesday decided to extend through the end of the year a bond maturity-extension program called Operation Twist, in which the central bank replaces short-term debt it holds with longer-term securities. Operation Twist had been due to end next week. 

READ MORE:  http://www.cnbc.com/id/47917484