Authored by Jeremy Portnoy via RealClearInvestigations,
Contractors working for the State of Illinois took a 470,000-hour paid lunch break on taxpayers' dime.
A company hired during the Covid-19 pandemic to fill staffing shortages at hospitals and long-term care facilities spent more than a third of its time on "standdown," a contract provision that paid them to be on-site and available in case they were needed.
The contractor, Favorite Healthcare Staffing, was supposed to notify the state any time its employees were on standdown for more than 24 hours. There was no evidence those notifications occurred, and the state only conducted limited oversight, according to an Aug. 11 report from Auditor General Christopher Meister.
Key facts: Favorite Healthcare earned $220.3 million from Illinois from 2022 to 2023, including $78.5 million for standdown hours.
The audit found 270 employees who billed for standdown time without actually working a single hour in two years. They earned $7.5 million.
At least eight employees even billed overtime at rates of up to $330 per hour during weeks they were on standdown for five consecutive days, according to the audit. One employee billed for overtime while he was in quarantine and not working.
Other employees billed more than 24 hours in a single day. The state paid their invoices without flagging the discrepancy, the audit found,
Favorite Healthcare was reimbursed $1.4 million for lodging costs, even though its employees were staying in their personal residences.
Upon discovering the issues, Illinois hired the consulting firm Innovative Emergency Management to review Favorite Healthcare's invoices.
But Innovative Emergency Management also had its own billing issues, the audit found. The company billed Illinois using duplicate timesheets and for employees who did not report working any hours.
Illinois later had to hire yet another firm, Crowe, to review Innovative Emergency Management's invoices. Crowe earned $1.3 million.
Summary: The public should not have to pay contractors to sit around and twiddle their thumbs, nor pay consultants to figure out why.
The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com.
Tyler Durden Sun, 09/06/2026 - 11:40The DOE's National Reactor Innovation Center announced 12 companies covering 13 projects for its latest Nuclear Energy Launch Pad (NELP) round on August 24th. Similar to the project coverage from the first round, this new group also spans multiple stages of the nuclear industry.
As we covered when the first four companies were selected, the initial group included the uranium enrichment company General Matter and reactor developers Radiant, Deployable Energy and NuCube Energy.
Multiple companies are seeing repeat entries into the fast-track nuclear development programs under the DOE:
The NELP offers access to nuclear expertise and infrastructure with a prioritized pathway through DOE authorization. The NELP is the new program that succeeded the DOE Reactor Pilot Program and DOE Fuel Line Pilot Program that have kick-started the nuclear renaissance in the US.
While not every company has been open about what they're working on under the NELP, we collected what we could find on each of the companies and their various programs:
Antares Nuclear: Transportable microreactors for military and space applications. Its R1 design combines TRISO fuel with sodium heat pipes, targeting 100 kilowatts to 1 megawatt of electricity. Its selection uses “Launch Pad USA”, which means they do not have to be at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) site to enjoy the benefits of the program
Atlas Atomics: They’re developing heavy-water reactor technology intended to combine electricity generation with medical and industrial isotope production and the reuse of spent nuclear fuel. Not much is known about their reactor design, but based on it being heavy water, it makes it similar to the CANDU reactor fleet in Canada. And with a previously written letter of support for Utah being one of the locations considered for the Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campuses, it is anticipated the company will be starting in the same state for their initial work.
Deployable Energy: Working on Unity, a transportable, high-temperature gas-cooled “nuclear battery” designed to generate 1 megawatt using helium cooling and conventional <5% enriched LEU fuel for industrial, defense, maritime and remote applications. Its two NELP selections cover a full-power demonstration at INL and a maritime demonstration with Hornbeck Offshore under Launch Pad USA.
Forge Atomics: Developing Ember, a factory-built, 25-megawatt reactor for data centers and the grid. It's one of the least novel designs on the list, leaning into the industry's decades of experience with pressurized water designs and conventional LEU fuel. Components are sized for highway transport, with factory manufacturing intended to bring down construction costs and delays.
Hexium: Developing laser-based isotope enrichment, initially targeting lithium for fusion and fission applications. The company is modernizing Atomic Vapor Laser Isotope Separation, technology developed at the DOE's national labs, and has also outlined plans for uranium enrichment. The company announced partnerships with Oklo and TerraPower when they initially came out of stealth last year.
Lightbridge: Developing twisted uranium-zirconium metallic fuel rods for existing and new reactors, including small modular reactors, aiming to improve heat transfer, increase output and extend refueling intervals. Its NELP project is SHED, a planned INL manufacturing facility for lead test assemblies destined for testing in U.S. commercial power reactors.
Nusano: Developing accelerator-based radioisotope production for cancer diagnosis and treatment, with additional work on industrial isotopes and nuclear batteries. Its energy business is pursuing mass-separation technology that enriches uranium metal to produce high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) for advanced reactor fuel.
Oklo: Developing Aurora fast-fission reactors to supply electricity and burn used nuclear fuel from traditional reactors. Their business model calls for owning and operating plants and selling their output under long-term contracts. The company is also pursuing nuclear-fuel recycling and isotope production for medical, industrial and research applications.
Raven-Flint Nuclear: Developing the Corvus Route for uranium conversion, producing uranium hexafluoride without elemental fluorine gas. Following laboratory production, its NELP project is Torch, a planned pilot conversion plant at INL targeting 500 tonnes of uranium annually. That would add capacity between uranium mining and enrichment.
Scaled Atomics: Developing the MN-350, a mobile nuclear power system designed for a standard 20-foot shipping container and a ten-year refueling interval. It targets military missions, disaster response and remote commercial sites. The company says Launch Pad USA will help advance MN-350 from advanced design toward demonstration and commercial deployment.
Sublime Nuclear: Focused on rebuilding the domestic nuclear fuel supply chain and reducing dependence on foreign suppliers. Unfortunately, that's about as much information as is currently available. The website doesn't have much else to it, and no press releases have been put out by the company yet.
Valar Atomics: Developing high-temperature gas-cooled reactors for mass production and deployment. Its ambitions extend across AI data centers, industrial heat, hydrogen and synthetic fuels, with manufacturing and deployment concentrated at what it calls gigasites. The company made headlines recently with a recent funding round that reached over $1 billion in equity and debt.
Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,
The Setup Has TeethEarlier this week, in our Daily Market Commentary, I flagged that the market was testing support after three straight down days, starting in September, with the calendar. That was just the warm-up, as the real story lies in a note from Scott Rubner at Citadel Securities, whose read on September market weakness is among the best that I have read. Rubner’s case is not that the bull market has ended. It is that the near-term math just changed, and hardly anyone is positioned for the shift.
Why September Market Weakness Is A Record, Not A FlukeSeptember has a losing record that is worth paying attention to. Since 1928, September is the only month in the year that closes lower more often than higher. Over the past century, the average return is a loss of roughly -1.1%, and in midterm election years like this one, it slips to roughly -1.5%. Furthermore, the back half of the month is the weakest two-week stretch of the calendar year.
As CNBC noted in its writeup of Rubner’s work, this is not a “quirky stat” from a cherry-picked window, it is close to a century of data pointing the same direction, and the average intra-month selloff of -4.7% (nearer -6.2% in midterm years) is the kind of air pocket that turns a quiet drift into a real drawdown before most investors update their models. Such is the reputation September has earned honestly.
The Buyers Who Carried August Are Leaving The TableHere is what makes this year different. Every cohort that pushed the S&P 500 to records in August is stepping back at the same time. The earnings tailwind that carried the tape is largely behind us. Retail buyers, who returned in force through the summer, tend to fade in September, and Citadel’s own data show their buying on down days has run near half its normal pace since 2019. (Chart courtesy of Citadel Securities)
As we have discussed previously, the corporate bid, which has been a net buyer of equities since 2000, turns negative. Companies authorized more than $1.1 trillion in buybacks through August, but that buyer goes quiet as blackouts accelerate around September 12, right before third-quarter reporting. (Chart courtesy of Citadel Securities)
The systematic crowd, the CTAs and volatility-control funds that reloaded off the July lows, have already spent most of their capacity. (Chart courtesy of Citadel Securities)
When you add up the cohorts, the demand side is quietly EMPTYING.
So, here is the most common criticism hitting my inbox this past week: “Yes, but that seasonality is just a statistic.” That is a fair statement, and it is indeed an average of returns. However, a statistic is exactly what it is. A statistic with five structural tailwinds draining out behind it, though, stops being a coin flip and starts being a setup
Protection Has Rarely Been This Cheap Into The NoiseNow, the part that should get your attention. Volatility collapsed in late August. The VIX fell to around 14, its lowest reading of the year, and S&P skew sank to the first percentile of its range, which is a technical way of saying downside insurance was the cheapest it had been all year. The one-month, 25-delta put changed hands near its most affordable level since December 2024.
As we headed into the month, a garden-variety three-day decline popped the VIX back toward 16 in just a handful of sessions. The size of that move, given the very mild decline, tells you how little cushion was priced in. Cheap protection is landing just as the macro calendar turns increasingly noisy, with the jobs report yesterday, then CPI, and an FOMC decision all stacked into the next two weeks. When protection is this cheap and buyers are this tired, the cost of being caught without a hedge climbs quickly. As Howard Marks likes to remind investors, you cannot predict, but you can prepare, and September has consistently been a month to prepare for.
To wit: cheap insurance is a gift the market rarely leaves on the table for long, and it never rings a bell on the morning it decides to take the gift back.
The Options Market Is Carrying A Record Into ExpiryThe last piece of the September puzzle is purely mechanical. On the third Friday of the month, the September options expiry will occur. That event is currently on track to set a record. Roughly $9.6 trillion is set to roll off through September 18. Then about $6.2 trillion of that is concentrated to expire on the 18th alone. That single day would clear the June triple-witch near $7.7 trillion, which was itself a record. Add quarter-end pension rebalancing, with funding ratios near 112% and plans de-risking out of stocks and into bonds, and the plumbing itself leans against equities into month-end.
Notably, none of this guarantees a market selloff. However, it does stack the odds against overly aggressive investors. Currently, every major desk from JPMorgan to BofA has turned cautious. However, CNBC’s own investment committee is refusing to sell a single share into the weakness. That crowd can be right about the direction and still be wrong, or early, on the timing. Such is the nature of a market that loves to punish the obvious trade.
A Second Desk Lands On The Same DownsideWhile Scott Rubner reads the market through flows, BTIG’s Jonathan Krinsky reads it through the tape. Interestingly, he lands in nearly the same place as Rubner. Krinsky’s framing is that the post-summer rally has been a game of “musical chairs” rather than a true “broadening.” Money rotated out of Technology and AI into Consumer Cyclicals and Large Cap Value. At the same time, the index sits roughly where it did on June 2. Breadth has quietly rolled over. The share of Russell 3000 names above their 50-day average is the lowest since early April. Furthermore, the one-month correlations just jumped to their highest level since June. That is a classic tell that names begin to fall together.
The other half of the concern is investor complacency. The five-day put/call ratio sits near 0.82. That is one of the lowest readings in years. Notably, the tape has not printed a single 80% NYSE downside-volume day in almost a year. That long stretch falls against a historical average of 21.
Lastly, Krinsky’s base case is a failed retest of the 7,600 breakout, followed by a slide toward 7,200-7,300. Such a pullback would encompass 7% to 8% off the highs. While not a meaningful decline, given the market’s low volatility and high investor complacency, it will “feel” much worse. That lower zone sits right on Rubner’s midterm seasonal math and the rising 200-day average near 7,127.
Think about it this way. When both a flow desk and a technical desk reach the same number from opposite directions, you should at least respect it. Crucially, none of that means that it will happen with absolute certainty, nor does it pinpoint the day. But it is certainly a risk worth appreciating.
What Should Investors Do Now
So, what does this all mean for investors? Most importantly, this is a tactical market reset, not a call to abandon equities and go hide in cash. Scott Rubner himself framed the September weakness as a “better entry point ahead of a more constructive mid-October.”
He is correct. Once mid-October arrives, the options expiry will have cleared, the FOMC will have met, and corporate buybacks will have resumed. Notably, the market will be focusing on Q3 corporate earnings reports. which typically support markets heading into November.
Therefore, the investor playbook is to use market strength to rebalance portfolio risk rather than chase it.
The moves worth making now are the unglamorous ones. Start by taking profits and banking gains where a position has run well past its intended weight. Raise a little cash so a pullback becomes an opportunity rather than a scramble. Then add downside protection while it is still on sale. Why? Because the whole point of Rubner’s note is that the insurance is cheap today and may not be next week. Such is the value of preparing before the crowd decides it has to.
September rarely hands out cheap insurance and a clear warning at the same time. When it does, the disciplined move is to take both.
* * *
Heading into next week, the support and resistance levels are evident. The first resistance is the record at 7,796, about 1% away. Just above that are the round numbers at 7,900 and 8,000. (Those are our year-end targets that sit just above previous all-time highs.) Conversely, support starts at the 50-day near 7,585. That level also marks the breakout that a failed retest would expose. Just below that level is the 7,300 zone, then the 200-day at 7,137, the same downside band the seasonal math points toward.
With that setup going into next week, we will want to continue playing defense rather than offense. Secondly, investors should consider increasing cash buffers keep stops under the 50-day. Lastly, use any push toward the record market levels to trim rather than chase.
To be fair to the bullish camp, a decisive close back above 7,796 would neutralize the momentum warning and reopen those round-number targets. There are several risks ahead, from the mid-term election cycle to the loss of corporate buybacks, so this is a two-sided setup rather than a directional call. However, pay close attention to the 7,585 next week. If the market can hold that level, the uptrend will remain intact. If it fails, the seasonal downside risk increases.
Key Catalysts Next WeekNext week is a holiday-shortened trading week with one question that will dominate it.
“Does inflation confirm the hike that Friday’s jobs report just put back on the table?”
With the market closed on Monday for Labor Day, that stacks the two prints that will matter the most at the very end. PPI lands Thursday morning and CPI follows Friday, both at 8:30 AM ET, and both feed straight into the September 16 FOMC decision.
This week is where the Fed debate will get settled. Ellen Zentner, chief economic strategist at Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, framed it well after the jobs report. The upside payroll surprise certainly heightened rate-hike concerns, but the outcome will hinge on next week’s inflation numbers. If CPI and PPI come in cooler than feared, the Fed can discount the hot labor market signal. However, if both prints come in hotter than expected, a September hike moves from a coin flip to the base case.
As far as the rest of the week goes, the slate is fairly thin. Tuesday brings NFIB small business optimism and consumer credit. Then on Thursday, we will see jobless claims, existing home sales, and wholesale inventories. As noted, PPI also drops on Thursday, with Friday’s CPI report coming alongside the preliminary Michigan sentiment read. The Fed itself goes quiet, with the pre-meeting blackout that began September 5 keeping every official off the tape through the decision.
Overall, the earnings calendar remains very light, with the vast majority of earnings already behind us. However, of note, Oracle reports on Thursday after the close and will be scrutinized for AI cloud demand and hyperscaler capex. Its numbers and backlog commentary will swing semiconductors and the broader AI complex more than any single macro release.
Adobe follows the same afternoon. Crude is the other wildcard, with a 9% weekly surge on Middle East supply fears keeping energy and inflation risk alive. Thin post-holiday liquidity can exaggerate the reaction to both inflation prints, so expect sharper intraday swings than the calendar alone would suggest.
Friday’s CPI is THE report for the week, and everything else is pretty much a sideshow until that number crosses.
Tyler Durden Sun, 09/06/2026 - 10:30