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Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is likely to signal his views about the uncertain prospects for the worlds biggest economy but he probably wont give many clues on whether the U.S. central bank will pump more cash to keep the recovery going.

Other top central bankers will arrive in the Jackson Hole resort with concerns, too.

European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet faces his own challenge of a two-tier recovery.

While the euro zone economy as a whole has strengthened thanks to strong German growth, the ECB looks set to keep providing banks with unlimited funds at a fixed rate to help banks and governments in Europes troubled periphery.

Bank of England and the Bank of Japan officials will come to the Teton mountains likely to talk about how they might have to push more money into their economies to stimulate growth, a last resort when benchmark interest rates approach zero.

Its not just the U.S. that stalled in June and July, its the world economy that hit a wall over the summer months, said Ellen Zentner, a U.S. economist for Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ in New York.

The likely mood of concern among the central bankers heading for the wilds of Wyoming contrasts with the optimism of a year ago, when debate at Jackson Hole centered on ways to wean economies off emergency support as they emerged from recession.

The discussions give the worlds top central bankers a chance to thrash out the major challenges of the moment as well as hike on trails in the scenic national park.

Past roundups have come at economic turning points: the start of the credit crisis in 2007, the days before Lehman collapsed in 2008 and before the start of the recovery in 2009.

Chicago Federal Reserve Bank President Charles Evans said Tuesday that the risks of a double-dip U.S. recession have risen in the last six months. While he added he did not think that was the most likely scenario, he said high unemployment and a fractured housing sector would make the recovery a fragile one.

EYES ON BERNANKE

Bernankes speech Friday will be a keystone of the three-day conference, which has chosen as its theme the challenges of the next decade. His audience will be listening keenly for clues about shorter-term support for the economy.

The Fed said on August 10 it would buy Treasury bonds with proceeds of maturing securities in its massive portfolio. It had been letting its balance sheet shrink naturally, effectively removing some of its huge stimulus.

This wasnt the right time to send a signal that we would be allowing a tightening to take place as these securities rolled off our balance sheet, Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher told Fox Business Network Tuesday.

The big question now is whether the Federal Reserve will start buying Treasury bonds more aggressively again to provide the U.S. economy with a new injection of cash.

The Wall Street Journal said Tuesday that more senior Fed officials than previously thought voiced concerns about or objections to the relatively modest move to use mortgage debt maturities to buy Treasuries at the August 10 meeting.

The reported split within the central banks upper echelons suggested the Fed could stand pat after rebalancing its balance sheet and set a high bar for any further asset purchases.

Under these circumstances, it would be premature for Chairman Bernanke to provide a set of guideposts for future policy moves, as helpful as that would be for the markets and as much as we believe that additional easing will ultimately be needed, analysts at Goldman Sachs said in a note Tuesday.

Instead, we expect him to concentrate on how the economy and the Fed have come to where they are now, with at best just a general sense of economic risks in the months ahead.

Reporting by Mark Felsenthal; Editing by Kim Coghill

But even if Japans government acted alone to try and halt yen strength, dealers were skeptical it could reverse the growing unwillingness among investors to take risks that has underlied the yens 10 percent rise against the dollar so far this year.

The dollar went to 83 yen, so the chance of intervention has increased, but it would take more than intervention, said Kiichi Murashima, economist at Citigroup Global Markets in Tokyo.

It has to be coupled with easing by the BOJ to have any impact, he said, referring to any further monetary policy easing by the Bank of Japan.

The dollar rose 0.6 percent against the yen to 84.37 yen on short-covering, having pulled up from a 15-year low of 83.58 yen hit on trading platform EBS on Tuesday.

Adding to investors worries about exposure to riskier assets, key U.S. stock indexes fell as much as 1.7 percent overnight after an unexpected plunge in existing home sales amplified fears that the economy could be sliding into a prolonged period of stagnation or even recession. .N

Chicago Federal Reserve Bank President Charles Evan said the risks of a double-dip U.S. recession have risen in the last six months. While he added he did not think that was the most likely scenario, he said high unemployment and a fractured housing sector would make the recovery a fragile one.

U.S. stock futures, though, were up 0.3 percent on Wednesday, with bargain hunters expected to provide some support.

That eased the blow on Asian stock markets, but an unmistakable falling trend in government bond yields around the world reflected deep unease about the prospect of another recession.

Japans Nikkei share average fell 0.85 percent after earlier hitting the lowest since May 2009. .T

Shares of exporters such as Honda Motor Co 7267.T, which was down around 2 percent, have been stung by the rising yen. The currencys strength has blown past many exporters assumptions for the year, threatening to crimp profits even as global demand appears to be cooling.

The MSCI index of Asia Pacific stocks outside Japan slipped 0.35 percent .MIAPJ0000PUS, led by sectors most sensitive to business cycles such as raw materials and technology.

However, the index, which is down 3.6 percent on the year, has held up better than the all-country world index, which has fallen 7.1 percent .MIWD00000PUS.

Asias relative growth advantage over Western economies has been a buffer against recent shocks, with emerging markets managing to keep attracting portfolio investment.

Indias stock market, for example, has absorbed $8 billion in foreign equity inflows since June, TrimTabs Investment Research said in a report.

WILL JAPAN INTERVENE?

Caution on the yen initially stemmed from a Nikkei business daily report saying Japans Ministry of Finance may consider unilateral yen-selling intervention without the blessing of other advanced economies if speculators drive up the currency.

Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda reinforced that view, telling reporters on Wednesday that recent yen moves were one-sided and Tokyo will respond appropriately when necessary. The euro rose 0.2 percent to $1.2652, mostly ignoring Standard & Poors sovereign credit rating downgrade of Ireland.

The possibility of additional easing by the Federal Reserve has hurt the dollars attractiveness, but persistent concerns about Europes fiscal health have prevented investors from running to the euro en masse.

Japanese government bonds extended gains as investors moved into less risky assets, with the benchmark 10-year yield touching a fresh seven-year low, as the yens surge nudged up the previously negligible chances of monetary policy easing by the Bank of Japan before its rate review next month. The most likely move by the BOJ would be simply to increase the amount or extend the time period of a fixed-rate fund supply operation to banks, but market watchers doubt that would do much to halt the yens climb or spur more bank lending to boost the fragile economy.

Additional reporting by Leika Kihara and Tetsushi Kajimoto in TOKYO.

The Securities and Exchange Commission will meet at 10:00 a.m. EDT Wednesday to decide whether to adopt a rule that would give shareholders an easier way to nominate corporate board directors.

Giving shareholders the ability to place their director nominees on the corporate proxy statement has long been sought by big activist shareholders who want more say on how their companies are run.

Demand for proxy access increased after the government used billions of dollars in taxpayer funds to prop up companies like American International Group and Bank of America.

Corporate boards are the first line of defense to some of the excesses that led to the global financial crisis, said the Council of Institutional Investors, which represents public, union and corporate pension funds that hold more than $3 trillion in assets.

According to the plan under consideration, shareholders would have to hold at least 3 percent of the companys stock for a minimum period of three years in order to nominate a director, one source said.

Small companies, or companies with less than $75 million in market capitalization, could be given a three-year delay to comply with the proxy access rule, said the source.

The source requested anonymity because the plan is not final and could change before the SEC meeting later on Wednesday.

DODD-FRANK BILL

Over the past decade, two other SEC chairmen have tried to adopt proxy access rules with no success. This time, the SEC has backing from the Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill, which affirms the agencys authority to adopt proxy access rules.

The legislation will help shield the SEC from some lawsuits. In the past, the business community has threatened to sue the SEC saying the agency does not have the power to adopt the rule.

However, former Republican SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins said he still expects the SEC to be sued if it adopts a proxy access rule.

Because of the disparate treatment among shareholders that is one of the prime reasons that a challenge could arise, Atkins said on Reuters Insider television. I think something like that could be successful.

3 PCT OWNERSHIP

The SEC had contemplated setting the holding period at one year and creating a sliding scale ownership threshold between 1 percent and 5 percent.

But critics had argued that the one-year holding period was too short and that only requiring shareholders to own 1 percent of a large company would make it too easy for companies to fall prey to special interest groups.

Big investors such as the Council said the 3 percent ownership level is a very challenging but reasonable hurdle to impose on groups of long-term investors.

Currently, shareholders are able to nominate their own directors but must wage a proxy fight in order to do so. That process is considered expensive and burdensome, according to large activist shareholders.

Reporting by Rachelle Younglai, additional reporting by Karey Wutkowski; Editing by Phil Berlowitz