* Japan PM to brief media Friday on yen steps-Kyodo
* Yen dips on wariness about whether Japan will take action
* Traders await Bernanke's speech, U.S. GDP data
By Jessica Mortimer
LONDON, Aug 27 (Reuters) - The yen dipped against the dollar and the euro on Friday on jitters over whether Japanese authorities could be preparing to take action to stem the yen's rise.
The dollar held within tight ranges against major currencies on caution before a speech by Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke at the annual Federal Reserve conference in Jackson Hole and U.S. gross domestic product data.
Kyodo news agency reported Japan's Prime Minister Naoto Kan would speak on Friday on steps to cope with a recent surge in the yen, while Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda reiterated the government would take appropriate action when needed.
This put a lid on yen gains as investors paused before the weekend, traders and analysts said.
"We have had such a strong move followed by more and more talk about possible intervention risk that it is natural people would want to trim long positions," said Anders Soderberg, currency strategist at SEB in Stockholm.
At 0802 GMT, the dollar was up 0.2 percent against the yen at 84.67, pulling off an intraday low of 84.27 yen as traders said the media report of Kan's news conference sparked short-squeezing in dollar/yen.
But the pair stayed close to a 15-year low of 83.58 yen hit on trading platform EBS earlier this week. The euro rose 0.3 percent to 107.76 yen.
The euro inched up 0.1 percent against the dollar to $1.2729 , off a six-week low of $1.2588 hit earlier this week, on renewed concerns about the fiscal health of some peripheral euro zone countries.
Traders said the euro held within a tight range ahead of U.S. GDP data at 1230 GMT and Bernanke's speech at 1400 GMT. They cited bids around $1.2690, capped by offers around $1.2750.
The Fed announced plans earlier this month to boost a flagging economy by reinvesting money from maturing mortgage bonds in government debt and investors will look for clues on possible further moves.
"Jackson Hole has not traditionally been a venue for major policy statements, but we do not exclude this possibility," analysts at JPMorgan said in a research note.
SEB's Soderberg said the market was priced for a downward revision to U.S. GDP after recent weak data. A particularly weak number may cause knee-jerk dollar falls but this would probably be short-lived if global equities fell in response, prompting investors to seek the safety of the greenback, he said.
RECORD PEAK
Despite the risk of possible action by Japanese authorities to curb yen strength such as yen-selling intervention or monetary easing by the Bank of Japan, some traders and investors say the yen could test a record high of 79.75 yen to the dollar, hit in April 1995, later this year.
The fate of the yen will depend on the overall trend of the U.S. economy rather than the possibility of Bank of Japan intervention, Michiharu Maeda, general manager of Dai-ichi's separate account management division told Reuters in an interview on Thursday.
"We believe that there is a big chance of the BOJ intervening by itself ... but the impact could be limited as the central bank's efforts could result in creating more chances for the market to sell (the dollar against the yen)," Maeda said.
A euro zone source familiar with the situation said on Thursday that joint central bank intervention to stem the rise of the yen was not likely.
(Additional reporting by Masayuki Kitano in Tokyo)