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# The Week in Deregulation: Apprenticeships, Nursing Homes and LNG
- URL: https://www.freemarketsreport.com/the-week-in-deregulation-november-13-2026/
- Published: 2026-11-13T22:07:03.000Z
- Updated: 2026-11-13T22:07:03.000Z
- Description: Labor cut apprenticeship paperwork, CMS eased nursing home sales, PHMSA rewrote the LNG code with a catch, and New York froze rents. How my six ideas did, and the dates to hold.
- Author: Michael A. Gayed, CFA

**Seven pieces this week. Six were about rules coming off, and one was about a price control going on. The six cut real cost: $100.18 million a year off apprenticeship paperwork, an estimated $142.6 million a year off nursing homes, about $98 million a year off LNG plants and $57.02 million a year off the owners of turbine airplanes. The seventh, New York's rent freeze, did the opposite, and I think the lenders have already priced it. My six stock ideas split. Comfort Systems and Ensign are up. The other four are down, and only two of the six beat the S&P 500 fund over their own windows. Last week all six did. That is why I keep telling you one week is noise.**

## Key Highlights

- **The cleanest win:** Labor's final apprenticeship rule saves $100.18 million a year and takes effect Jan. 5, 2027\. The race and sex analyses that drew the headlines save about $986,000 of it ([Labor Cut $100 Million of Apprenticeship Red Tape](https://www.freemarketsreport.com/labor-cut-100-million-of-apprenticeship-red-tape-the-race-goals-were-1-of-it/)).
- **The biggest number:** The CMS proposal would save nursing homes an estimated $142.6 million a year and hospitals $123.2 million. Comments close Jan. 11, 2027.[1](#fn-1)
- **The catch of the week:** PHMSA's LNG rewrite saves about $98 million a year and then asks export terminals to design for a 10,000-year wind ([The LNG Rulebook Runs on a 2001 Standard](https://www.freemarketsreport.com/the-lng-rulebook-runs-on-a-2001-standard-the-rewrite-has-a-catch/)).
- **The scoreboard:** Comfort Systems leads at +9.3% from my entry and Remitly trails at -2.5%. The six average +1.0%. The S&P 500 fund rose 2.6% on the week.[2](#fn-2)
- **Next week:** Import and export prices and industrial production land Tuesday, and the Fed publishes the minutes of its Oct. 27-28 meeting Wednesday at 2:00 p.m. ET.[3](#fn-3)

## The week's moves, ranked

I rank these by how much money they move and how hard they are to undo. Headlines don't count. A final rule beats a proposal, and a proposal beats a withdrawal.

**1\. Labor cut $100 million of apprenticeship paperwork.** The final rule, RIN 1205-AC21, rescinds the affirmative action requirements in 29 CFR part 30 and replaces them with one duty: follow the anti-discrimination law that already exists. It takes effect Jan. 5, 2027\. Here is the part I keep coming back to. The race and sex workforce analyses, the piece everyone argued about, save about $986,000 a year. Orientation sessions and mandatory training save $56.31 million. The fight was over 1% of the money. Winners: any contractor short of trained craft workers, which is most of them. Losers: the paperwork ([my Nov. 8 piece](https://www.freemarketsreport.com/labor-cut-100-million-of-apprenticeship-red-tape-the-race-goals-were-1-of-it/)).

**2\. CMS wants to stop punishing nursing home buyers.** Under the proposed CARE rule, CMS-3484-P, an existing nursing home would no longer have to meet the two-per-room and in-room bathroom standards just because it changed owners. Think about what the old rule did. It made a struggling building harder to sell to someone who could run it better. The proposal also drops a Medicaid pay report that costs 13,605 facilities 285,705 hours a year. This is the biggest dollar figure of the week, and it is still only a proposal. Resident advocates will have their say on the room exemption, and they should. Winners: operators who buy and fix troubled buildings ([my Nov. 7 piece](https://www.freemarketsreport.com/cms-wants-to-stop-making-nursing-home-buyers-tear-out-old-rooms/)).

**3\. PHMSA is rewriting an LNG rulebook built on a 2001 standard.** Part 193 still leans on the 2001 edition of the industry fire code. The proposal swaps in the 2026 edition and PHMSA puts annualized savings at about $98 million. Good. Then comes the catch. Proposed Section 193.203 would make certain structures at FERC-certificated terminals withstand a 10,000-year wind, not the 1,700-year wind in the new code. In Cameron, Louisiana, that moves the design wind from 150 mph to 172 mph. I'm for the rewrite. I'm not for a clause that goes past the standard the agency is adopting. Comments are due Jan. 4, 2027 ([my Nov. 12 piece](https://www.freemarketsreport.com/the-lng-rulebook-runs-on-a-2001-standard-the-rewrite-has-a-catch/)).

**4\. The FAA fixed a 1989 inspection rule, and it took 1,014 days.** From Jan. 11, 2027, owners of single-engine turbine airplanes can follow a manufacturer's inspection program. The FAA puts net savings at $57.02 million a year, and one manufacturer told the agency a task-based program could save about $9,492 per airplane a year. The proposal drew 21 comments. The FAA says the ones on the flight rules were all supportive. It still took almost three years. Nobody opposed it. That should bother you ([my Nov. 13 piece](https://www.freemarketsreport.com/the-faa-fixed-a-1989-inspection-rule-nobody-opposed-it-it-took-1014-days/)).

**5\. Regulators dropped the $250 transfer rule.** FinCEN and the Fed withdrew a 2020 plan to cut the recordkeeping threshold on cross-border transfers to $250\. The agencies' own estimate was 3,315,844 extra hours of work a year. I rank it fifth because a withdrawal saves a cost that never arrived. The more interesting number is the one left behind. The $3,000 line has not moved since 1995, and matching its original reach would take about $6,621 today. Winners: remittance companies and the people who send small amounts home ([my Nov. 9 piece](https://www.freemarketsreport.com/regulators-dropped-the-250-transfer-rule-the-3000-line-has-lost-half-its-value/)).

**6\. The CFTC let perpetual futures onto U.S. stocks, and a court may take them back.** The contracts were deemed approved as security futures. Judge Valerie Caproni refused to halt them but found the challengers "likely to succeed on the merits." Since I wrote, the case has moved to Judge Lorna Schofield, who will schedule argument on a preliminary injunction, and the SEC has filed in support of the CFTC.[4](#fn-4) I like new products. I don't like building on a legal theory a judge has already doubted in writing ([my Nov. 10 piece](https://www.freemarketsreport.com/the-cftc-let-perpetual-futures-onto-us-stocks-a-federal-judge-already-doubts-it/)).

**7\. New York froze the rent.** This is the one that runs the other way. Order #58 sets the allowed increase at 0% on stabilized leases starting between Oct. 1, 2026 and Sept. 30, 2027, in a year the board's own index shows operating costs up 5.3%. Rents flat, costs up. You know how that ends. Flagstar Financial holds $8.1 billion of New York City loans on buildings that are at least half rent-regulated, and $4.4 billion of that is rated special mention, substandard or nonaccrual. I did not attach a stock idea to this piece. Winners: nobody for long. Losers: the buildings, then the tenants in them ([my Nov. 11 piece](https://www.freemarketsreport.com/mamdani-froze-the-rent-the-lenders-are-doing-the-math/)).

## The idea scorecard

Six of the seven pieces carried a stock idea. Here is where each stands against the price I logged, next to the S&P 500 fund (SPY) over the same window. Prices are Perplexity Finance quotes at Friday's close. This is price only. It is not advice and it is not a track record.

| Ticker | Logged  | Entry     | Nov. 13 close | Change | S&P 500 fund | Thesis status                                             |
| ------ | ------- | --------- | ------------- | ------ | ------------ | --------------------------------------------------------- |
| ENSG   | Nov. 7  | $181.08   | $188.41       | +4.0%  | +2.6%        | Unproven. The rule is a proposal; comments close Jan. 11. |
| FIX    | Nov. 8  | $1,017.50 | $1,112.50     | +9.3%  | +2.6%        | Intact. Most of the gain came Monday.                     |
| RELY   | Nov. 9  | $23.14    | $22.55        | \-2.5% | +0.4%        | Intact on the rule. The stock gave back Monday's pop.     |
| COIN   | Nov. 10 | $130.84   | $127.62       | \-2.5% | +0.8%        | At risk. The injunction ruling is still pending.          |
| VG     | Nov. 12 | $13.34    | $13.14        | \-1.5% | \-1.0%       | Unproven. One day old; comments due Jan. 4.               |
| TXT    | Nov. 13 | $84.31    | $83.65        | \-0.8% | \-0.4%       | Unproven. Logged today as a second-order idea.            |

![Bar chart of this week's six Free Markets Report stock ideas, showing the change from entry price to the Nov. 13 close, with Comfort Systems up 9.3 percent and Remitly down 2.5 percent, against the S&P 500 fund over the same windows](https://storage.ghost.io/c/be/1b/be1bb8f3-f534-4eb9-b00d-09ff49598e5f/content/images/size/w1000/2026/11/chart1_scoreboard-1.png)

Two up, four down. Two of six ahead of the S&P 500 fund.

Let me be plain about this one. Last week the comparison flattered me, because the market fell and my ideas fell less. This week it doesn't. The S&P 500 fund rose from $735.29 to $754.37, and four of my six trailed it.[2](#fn-2) Comfort Systems did the heavy lifting. It jumped 9.4% on Monday alone, from $1,017.50 to $1,113.23, and it has held most of that.[5](#fn-5) I'd love to credit the apprenticeship rule. I can't. A stock at half its 52-week high bounced with the market.

Coinbase is the one I'm watching hardest. It closed Friday at $127.62, below the $130.04 low I cited when I wrote it up.[6](#fn-6) I said then that the court case was the key risk. It still is.

## What the week says

Put the seven side by side and you get a clean experiment. In six cases an agency looked at a cost it was imposing and asked whether anyone was better off for it. Orientation sessions and workforce analyses. A room standard that blocked a sale. A 2001 fire code. A manual on a shelf. In the seventh, a board looked at costs rising 5.3% and set the price at zero change anyway.

I know the fair objection. Some of these rules protected someone, and one firm's saved cost is another's lost fee. That's true. But a rule has to earn its cost, and most of this week's did not. The rent freeze has a constituency too. It always does, right up until the building stops getting repaired.

I could be wrong on the order. If the LNG wind clause survives the comment period unchanged, that rule drops down my list, because the catch could cost more than the rewrite saves for any plant approved after it.

## What to watch next week

**Tuesday, Nov. 17:** October import and export prices at 8:30 a.m. ET[7](#fn-7), then industrial production at 9:15 a.m. ET.[3](#fn-3)

**Wednesday, Nov. 18:** Minutes of the Fed's Oct. 27-28 meeting at 2:00 p.m. ET. The next meeting is Dec. 8-9.[8](#fn-8)

**No date yet:** the preliminary injunction ruling on stock perpetual futures. It is the biggest open catalyst on this list, and I'd rather tell you I don't know the date than guess.

**Further out:** comments on the LNG proposal are due Jan. 4, 2027.[9](#fn-9) The apprenticeship rule takes effect Jan. 5.[10](#fn-10) The FAA inspection rule takes effect Jan. 11[11](#fn-11), the same day comments close on the CMS proposal. I keep all of these on the [Catalyst Calendar](https://www.freemarketsreport.com/the-deregulation-investors-catalyst-calendar/).

![Calendar of dated catalysts for the rules in this recap, from Nov. 17, 2026 to Jan. 11, 2027, including Fed minutes on Nov. 18 and the LNG comment deadline on Jan. 4, 2027](https://storage.ghost.io/c/be/1b/be1bb8f3-f534-4eb9-b00d-09ff49598e5f/content/images/size/w1000/2026/11/chart2_calendar-1.png)

Dates to hold.

If you know someone who runs a nursing home, a contracting firm or a flight department, send them this. Three of these dates land on their desk in January. Then we find out who was ready.

Know someone who should be reading this?

One deregulation story and one stock idea, every day, free. Send it to someone who thinks markets work better than mandates.

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## Sources

1. [Federal Register](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/11/10/2026-22812/medicare-and-medicaid-programs-cutting-administrative-requirements-for-excellence-in-patient-care?ref=freemarketsreport.com) (federalregister.gov)
2. [Perplexity Finance](https://www.perplexity.ai/finance/SPY?ref=freemarketsreport.com) (perplexity.ai)
3. [Federal Reserve calendar](https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/calendar.htm) (federalreserve.gov)
4. [Finance Magnates](https://www.financemagnates.com/forex/regulation/sec-backs-cftc-in-court-fight-over-perpetual-futures-on-us-stocks/?ref=freemarketsreport.com) (financemagnates.com)
5. [Perplexity Finance](https://www.perplexity.ai/finance/FIX?ref=freemarketsreport.com) (perplexity.ai)
6. [Perplexity Finance](https://www.perplexity.ai/finance/COIN?ref=freemarketsreport.com) (perplexity.ai)
7. [BLS release schedule](https://www.bls.gov/schedule/2026/11%5Fsched%5Flist.htm?ref=freemarketsreport.com) (bls.gov)
8. [Federal Reserve](https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/fomccalendars.htm) (federalreserve.gov)
9. [Federal Register](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/11/03/2026-22396/pipeline-safety-amendments-to-liquefied-natural-gas-facilities?ref=freemarketsreport.com) (federalregister.gov)
10. [Federal Register](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/11/06/2026-22680/prohibiting-illegal-discrimination-in-registered-apprenticeship-programs?ref=freemarketsreport.com) (federalregister.gov)
11. [Federal Register](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/11/10/2026-22953/inspection-programs-for-single-engine-turbine-powered-airplanes-and-unmanned-aircraft-and?ref=freemarketsreport.com) (federalregister.gov)