Recession risk at 50 percent: Caterpillar CFO

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A top executive at Caterpillar Inc (CAT.N), the world's top maker of earth-moving construction and mining equipment, said on Friday that the company believes there's as much as a 50 percent chance the U.S. economy could slip into recession next year.

In an interview with Reuters following the release of Caterpillar's third quarter earnings, Chief Financial Officer Dave Burritt said the U.S. Federal Reserve had to "get the balance just right" to avoid the current slowdown morphing into an outright recession.

"So we've put (the chance of a) recession in probably a 50-50 type range," he told Reuters.