In today's Action Alerts PLUS Daily Rundown, Bob Lang digs into the market technicals ahead of the weekend.

He discusses the portfolio's decision to add to AMN Healthcare (AMN) and why he considers this stock to be a buy.

BOB LANG: Good morning, Action Alerts PLUS members. It's August 26, 2022. Time for today's rundown. We have a lot to cover today. So let's get started with it. So this morning, actually just a few moments ago, Chair Powell started his speech at the Jackson Hole conference, the Kansas City Fed's conference that they have about once a year in August. And apparently, the market is not liking it.

So the markets are down about close to 1% today so far, just after the last few minutes. We don't know exactly what he's saying already. But perhaps it had more to do with the fact that they're going to be a little bit more aggressive on rate hikes. We'll talk about that a little bit later and have some notes for all the subscribers a little bit later on today.

But yesterday was a strong day, following up from a positive day on Wednesday. S&P 500 closed above 4,200 or literally right at the marker at 4,200 yesterday. But again, we're pulling back a little bit today after a sharp decline on Monday. And hopefully, the bulls can pick it up and put it together back today and bring it back over 4,200 by the end of the week. It's looking like, though, this could be the second straight down week for markets.

And as we end August next Wednesday, we are actually somewhat higher for the month. We were up quite a bit more a couple of weeks ago, but again, gave back a little bit of ground after we tagged that 200-day moving average just a couple of weeks ago. But we do see some upside potential up to that 4,300, 4,310 level where the 200-day moving average is right now.

We would like to see, if you're bullish, we would like to see a close above 4,170. We do see the markets kind of in a range right now between 4,170 and 4,070 on the S&P 500. And if we do close below that 4,070, there are quite a few targets to the downside leading all the way down to about 3,950, and even down to 3,900, which would be damaging to this minor uptrend here, but overall would not really put the overall uptrend from middle of June in danger or in jeopardy right now.

So we think that there could be some good movement to the upside if we get past all this news here and into the end of the month. Don't forget, end of the month often sees a little bit of window dressing. What does that mean? That means that we see buyers start stepping in and putting in stocks on their portfolios to show some names on their portfolio at the end of the month. Of course, next week is going to lead into Labor Day weekend, and we often see volatility start declining. So we have a lot of crosscurrents coming at the markets right now. So we'll have to pay attention to what's going on over the next several days.

Fed funds futures actually dropped, which means the potential for a 75 basis point rate hike had fallen sharply this morning after a couple of Fed governors said they were leaning towards 50 basis points following the data that came out this morning. Now, the data that came out this morning was personal consumption expenditures and inventories. So they seem to come out on the lighter side of things, meaning inflation is not expanding as much on that side.

We did see a reduction in income. We did see lower prices as well too, slightly lower prices, but also saw lower expenditures. So overall, it means that the economy is weakening here, and inflation is maybe cresting and possibly sliding down gently. So again, the Fed is going to have to be a little bit more aggressive on interest rate hikes as we move forward here.

And finally, the last thing we did yesterday, we added some AMN Healthcare. The stock had slid from about $117, $118 to roughly about the $100 area. Chris and I talked about it and said that this is the time to add some more shares here. And we upgraded it also to a one. We picked up some shares at about $105 to $106 yesterday. And it was a good pickup because the stock really finished strong at the end of the day.

So we like AMN here. And again, we upgraded it to a one, which means that we would suggest that subscribers go ahead and buy the stock right here. That's going to be it. Have a great day, everyone. Have a wonderful weekend, and we'll be back on Monday.

Action Alerts PLUS is long AMN.

We learned at Jackson Hole that the idea of a 'pivot' was just a dream and that Powell is resolved to quash inflation.

Today's news events are going to create some fireworks, so buckle up!

The charts are signaling bullish all around.

Additionally, Chris breaks down what he's watching in the markets.