The Fed chief will speak at the Kansas City Fed's Jackson Hole symposium later in the day - and traders are hoping that Bernanke will make comments indicating whether the central bank will engage in another round of quantitative easing.
The Asian markets were mostly lower on Thursday as Indonesia plunged 1.65 percent, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng plummeted 1.19 percent, South Korea's KOSPI fell 1.15 percent, Singapore's Straits Times shed 0.98 percent, Japan's Nikkei retreated 0.95 percent, Australia dipped 0.94 percent, Thailand lost 0.46 percent, Taiwan was down 0.26 percent, China's Shanghai Composite eased 0.03 percent, India added 0.29 percent and Malaysia was up 0.03 percent.
Attention is now on a meeting of central bankers at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where Bernanke is due to give a speech on Friday, with investors hoping he will outline plans for another round of monetary easing to kickstart the economy.
Expectant eyes from around the world will be on Bernanke, looking for assurances that the US economy is solid or, if not, that the Fed is ready to invest more to stimulate growth.
Markets have been on edge for weeks over whether the Fed chairman will act on the sluggish economy, making his keynote speech the main event at the Fed’s annual international central banking symposium.
Bernanke used the Jackson Hole venue the past two years to let markets and policymakers know what is on his mind. In 2010, he moved the markets with his signal of “QE2” — a second $600 billion quantitative easing programme aimed at pushing down long-term interest rates.
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