Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke is likely to use a speech today to underscore the series of emergency confidence-building steps the Federal Reserve has taken to keep financial markets liquid.
Mr Bernanke, European Central Bank (ECB) president Jean-Claude Trichet and other leading central bankers gathered yesterday in Wyoming for the Federal Reserve's annual Jackson Hole symposium.
Mr Bernanke is scheduled to speak this morning at the global central bankers' retreat and financial market participants are closely watching for signs the Federal Reserve may be willing to cut official interest rates to keep a slowdown from tipping into recession.
Mr Bernanke is expected to address the crisis in a speech about housing and monetary policy. He is also likely to make a clear distinction between providing liquidity to markets suffering from a sudden shortage and setting interest rates.
The meeting is usually a chance for central bankers to listen to new academic research and get to know each other in a series of seminars, dinners and hikes.
But these are not normal times and this year's gathering will be dominated by the weeks of turmoil in financial markets and what this means for monetary policy.
While the central bankers have been in regular contact since the crisis began, this is the first time they will have the opportunity to talk informally about how far the financial turmoil changes their sense of the economic outlook.
It will also be an opportunity for officials at central banks - including the big four - the Fed, the ECB, the Bank of Japan and the Bank of England - to discuss more thoroughly their diagnosis of the financial turbulence and its implications for policy.
At the start of the financial crisis a few weeks ago, the main central banks' first responses were different: the ECB tried to flood the money market with liquidity and the Bank of England refused to adopt any unusual measures.
Since then, the differences have narrowed and there is something approaching a common diagnosis of what is happening.
