What happened

Melco Resorts & Entertainment (MLCO 1.13%) got hit hard on Tuesday as its stock price was down as much as 12% in early afternoon trading. At the closing bell it was down 9.2% to $5.52 per share.

It was another rough day on the markets as the Dow was down 307 points, the Nasdaq dropped 134 points, and the S&P 500 fell 44 points. Some less-than-ideal economic news might have moved markets down, despite some potential good news for Melco, a hospitality industry stock.

So what

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) report, which showed that there were about 1 million more job openings in July than anticipated -- 11.3 million instead of the anticipated 10.4 million. This is another inflationary sign, as more job openings signal less hiring, which in turn means employers will have to raise salaries to attract workers.

It comes just days after Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome Powell said the Fed would be aggressive in its efforts to reduce inflation.

That may have clouded some potentially good news that Melco Resorts & Entertainment, a Hong Kong-based hotel and casino operator, got on Monday. The U.S. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) struck a deal with the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) and the Ministry of Finance of the People's Republic of China to conduct audits and investigations of companies based in China and Hong Kong. Previously, the PCAOB was not able to conduct those audits, which put some Chinese stocks in danger of being delisted from U.S. stock exchanges.

This audit agreement should be good news for Melco because without it, the company could have been in jeopardy of being delisted from the Nasdaq.

Now what

The potential Nasdaq delisting had been hanging over Melco stock for most of the year, but now that it appears to be headed toward resolution, investors should breathe a sigh of relief. Although, it is not a done deal yet -- and will not be until PCAOB has actually done the audit.

The company is still dealing with a travel market that has not fully recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic, but it did get some promising news that its major market, Macao, saw a 43% increase in visitors year over year for the week of Aug. 18–24, so things could be headed back in the right direction. However, given the state of the global economy, investors should tread cautiously.