Coming Week: Ready, Set, Listen

If Bernanke is indeed upbeat about the economy and fretting about inflation, the bulls could be in for another rough week. A more optimistic view says such expectations were starting to be reflected in Friday's selloff in stocks and Treasuries, and the damage may therefore be limited by the time Bernanke steps into the spotlight.

Bernanke is not the only unelected bureaucrat slated to make public pronouncements with the potential to roil financial markets in the coming week. The G7 confab in Essen, Germany got underway Friday amid much consternation about recent weakness in the yen, which has recently hit multiyear lows vs. other major currencies. The resulting price competitiveness of Japanese exports in the global marketplace has caused much handwringing in the rest of the industrialized world.

Ahead of the G7 meeting, House Democrats sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson requesting he admonish Japanese officials to "reverse their weak yen policy," The Financial Times reports.

The Bush administration seems much more focused on the Chinese yuan, but many European politicians would no doubt support the Democrats' suggested scolding of the Japanese, as the yen is approaching all-time low levels vs. the euro.

At the G7 meeting late Friday, French Finance Minister Thierry Breton told reporters the G7's communiqué will most likely not single out the yen. "Don't expect a specific paragraph on a specific currency," Reuters reports him saying.