CHRIS VERSACE: Good morning, Action Alerts Plus members. It's Tuesday, August 30. Stocks are looking at a rebound after selling off the last two days post-Fed Chair Powell comments at Jackson Hole. Let's remember, as Powell indicated, the Fed is likely to go bigger in its moves and remain hawkish longer than many were expecting. The wind-up over the last two days, however, is the market's modestly oversold. And the bounce that we started to see this morning isn't that surprising.
However, we do have two Fed heads, as we like to call them, speaking today. And we're going to have to monitor their comments to see if they really reinforce that harsh message, that sobering message that Powell shared late last week. To the extent that they do, we wouldn't be surprised to see the initial bounce fade throughout the day. As we digest those comments, however, couple things to keep in mind. Yesterday, the dollar hit a 20-year high. This means we're going to hear far more about currency headwinds in the coming weeks.
Remember, the August flash PMI also pointed to deteriorating business conditions, especially on the new order front. And last week, we heard from both Salesforce and Dell that enterprise spending continued to soften. All of this, in our opinion, sets us up for perhaps some greater turbulence after the Labor Day weekend, when we hit that mini wave of investor conferences. To us, the risk really to be feared is that we see further downward revisions in earnings expectations for the second half of the year.
How are we going to navigate the portfolio between now and then? Well, we're going to continue to be on that cautious path. We're going to continue to favor stocks that have well-identified catalysts. What I mean by that is examples such as the fiscal spending programs tied with infrastructure, the CHIPS infrastructure Act, and the like, as well as those that are benefiting not only from pain points like cybersecurity, but also those that have more defensible, inelastic business models that continue to thrive, excuse me, in a slowing economy.
Throughout it all, we're going to continue to watch the data. And we do have a lot of data coming this week. But this morning, we received the JOLTS report. And as members know, we like to dig into this report in particular given our position in AMN Healthcare. So what did it say? Health care and social assistance job openings for July, 1.98 million. Up 15% year over year. Not exactly indicating that the rollover in contract labor is happening.
The number of jobs hiring for the category were up double digits year over year, but down month over month. And the key takeaway for us is that the high opening rate associated with healthcare says, guess what? There's a lot more jobs to be filled. That keeps us very bullish on the shares of AMN Healthcare. That's a wrap for today's rundown. Thanks for joining us. We'll be back tomorrow.