The Week in Deregulation: Seven Rules, Seven Ideas, One Scoreboard

Seven rule changes crossed my desk this week, and the two biggest were not about guns, airlines or taxes. They were about who gets to be paid for moving money and matching trades. The OCC left a door open on stablecoin yield, and the SEC signaled it will drop the trade-through rule early next year while it rewrites the fees around it. Five of my seven stock ideas are above my entry price. One week is noise, so read the scoreboard as a log and not as a verdict.

Key Highlights

• The big two: The OCC finalized its GENIUS Act rule on Oct. 21 without a presumption against partner-paid stablecoin rewards, and the SEC's trading director called the end of Rule 611 "a Q1 event in all likelihood" (The OCC Left One Door Open on Stablecoin Yield; The SEC Wants to Drop the Rule Behind 17 Stock Exchanges).
• The scoreboard: Five of this week's seven ideas are above my entry price, and six beat the S&P 500 fund over their own windows, with a simple average of +1.4%.¹
• The best and worst: Abbott rose 5.5% and Cheniere 5.7% from my entry prices, while Smith & Wesson fell 3.0%.²
• Next week: The Fed decides on Oct. 28, GDP and PCE arrive Oct. 29, and Cheniere and Cboe both report before the open that week.³

The week's moves, ranked

I rank these by how much money and market structure they move, not by headline size. Each paragraph links to my full piece.

1. The OCC and stablecoin yield. On Oct. 21 the OCC dropped its proposed presumption that yield paid through an issuer's affiliates or partners evades the ban on issuer interest. It said it will look at arrangements case by case. The winners are issuers and platforms with distribution deals. The losers are bank trade groups, which wanted the presumption. The ABA said the rule preserves the status quo for crypto platforms. The White House economists put the lending effect of a yield ban at 0.02%. Read the full piece: The OCC Left One Door Open on Stablecoin Yield. Someone Gets the 3.5%.

2. The SEC and the trade-through rule. SEC trading director Jamie Selway said ending Rule 611 is likely a first-quarter 2027 event, and that access fee caps, tick sizes and the market data formula will be decided at the same time. The winners are scaled exchanges and brokers who stop paying to connect to 17 venues. The losers are small exchanges, which the SEC says could lose about $6.2 million of annual revenue across five venues. Read the full piece: The SEC Wants to Drop the Rule Behind 17 Stock Exchanges. Follow the Fees.

3. ATF and the silencer registry. Effective Oct. 9, ATF stopped requiring approval or registration for silencers, short-barreled rifles and shotguns. The registry held 6.9 million silencers as of Sept. 3. The winners are manufacturers and buyers who skip months of paperwork. The loser is the registry, though about 15 states still require the federal permit process. Read the full piece: ATF Stopped Enforcing the Silencer Registry. Congress Should Finish It

4. FERC and LNG plants. FERC proposed a three-tier program that lets LNG plant operators make eligible changes without a case-specific order. Comments are due Dec. 21. The winners are exporters with plants they can expand in place. The losers are anyone who earns a living on the slow permit queue. Read the full piece: FERC Wants LNG Plants to Stop Asking Permission for Every Part

5. The IRS and spin-offs. The IRS and Treasury withdrew three pieces of a 2016 spin-off proposal, including a "per se" device test. Three other 2016 proposals remain outstanding. The winners are companies planning tax-free carve-outs. The loser is the tax uncertainty that came with the old proposal. Read the full piece: Treasury Withdrew the Rule That Could Have Taxed Spin-Offs

6. The Fifth Circuit and USAC. A court held the FCC never had specific authority to create the universal service fund administrator and vacated a 38.1% contribution factor. The FCC says the order will not take effect for two months at the earliest. The fund draws about $9 billion a year, so the open question is whether the FCC can rebuild it on firmer legal ground. Read the full piece: The FCC Never Had the Power to Build USAC, a Court Says

7. DOT and flight delay codes. DOT pushed to Feb. 1, 2027 a rule that moves ten kinds of disruption out of the airline-fault code. The winners are airlines, which pay fewer amenities and compensation. The losers are passengers, and DOT said so itself. Read the full piece: Ten Kinds of Flight Delay Will Stop Counting Against Airlines in 2027

The idea scorecard

Every day I end the piece with one stock that sits near the rule change. Here is how this week's seven did, winners and losers together. This is a log, not a track record, and it is not advice.

Prices are closing quotes on Oct. 23 from ⁴. The S&P 500 column uses the SPY fund from the prior close to the Oct. 23 close, because my entries were intraday quotes. SPY closed at $759.97 on Friday and fell about 0.5% on the day.

Here is what the table says. Six of seven beat the fund, but the fund itself slipped through the second half of the week, so most of the "beat" is a falling benchmark. The real winners are Cheniere and Abbott. Cheniere gained while the market sold off. Abbott bounced from my entry price after a morning drop on the spin-off news.

Here is what it does not tell you. One to six trading days cannot show whether any idea was right. The average gain of 1.4% could be gone by Tuesday. If I printed only the winners, you would have no reason to trust the rest. You deserve to see the misses too, so the full list lives on the Free Markets Report Idea Scorecard, which I refresh every Friday.

What the week says

Two threads run through all seven. First, regulators are choosing to open markets by taking away mandates, not by writing new ones. ATF stopped enforcing, FERC proposed blanket approvals, the IRS withdrew a test, the SEC is preparing to retire a rule. Second, the fights that follow are never about the rule itself. They are about the money around it.

That is why the OCC and the SEC stories matter more than the ones with louder headlines. In both, the regulator is relaxing a restriction and the incumbents on both sides are lining up to protect the fee they collect. Banks want stablecoin issuers barred from paying rewards because deposits are their cheapest funding. Exchanges want Rule 611 gone but want to keep the access fee schedule that pays them. Pro-market is not pro-incumbent, and I try to say so about whichever side is the incumbent that week.

The weak spot this week was the court story. The USAC ruling is a real constitutional win for people who want the FCC kept inside its statute. But the practical effect is a two-month wait and an agency that says it is considering all options. A ruling that changes nothing for sixty days is a reminder that deregulation by court is slow, and that Congress is the only body that can finish the job. The same is true for the ATF: an agency that stops enforcing a registry still has the registry in statute.

What to watch next week

These dates are confirmed on primary calendars. I track them all on the Deregulation Investor's Catalyst Calendar.

• Wednesday, Oct. 28: The Fed's two-day meeting ends with a 2:00 p.m. ET statement.³
• Thursday, Oct. 29: BEA releases third-quarter GDP and September personal income and outlays at 8:30 a.m. ET.⁵ Cheniere reports before the open the same morning, with a call at 11:00 a.m. ET.⁶
• Friday, Oct. 30: Cboe reports third-quarter results.⁷ I will look at the equities line first.
• Later: Circle reports Nov. 4⁸, FERC comments on the LNG proposal are due Dec. 21, the OCC rule takes effect Jan. 18, 2027, and DOT's delay-code rule takes effect Feb. 1, 2027.

The Fed decision is the one that could move all seven ideas at once. If you hold any of these names, check whether you are really exposed to the rule change or to the rate path. They are not the same bet.

I will be back Monday with a new rule and a new idea. If this recap was useful, forward it to one person who would rather read about the rules than the headlines.

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