Business Report, Oct. 24, 2026: Moody’s Spares France, Alaska LNG Shake-Up

In today’s business report for October 24, 2026, Wall Street is closed for the weekend, but the money news kept coming. Moody’s spared France a credit downgrade late Friday, a $25 billion Alaska gas export project lost its top executives over claims of hidden Russian money, and Israel’s central bank publicly rejected the prime minister’s idea of using crypto to dodge sanctions. Airlines are flying fewer people at much higher fares, and investors are bracing for one of the biggest weeks of the year.

Moody’s Spares France a Downgrade

Moody’s left France’s credit rating at Aa3 on Friday evening, a grade it still calls “high grade,” and kept the negative outlook it first attached last October, CNBC reported. Bond markets had priced in a cut that would have matched the lower grades S&P Global and Fitch handed down in 2025, Reuters noted, so the decision came as a reprieve, the Financial Times wrote.

The reprieve comes with conditions. In its statement, Moody’s said the rating “assumes that a deficit-reducing budget for 2027 will be adopted, while financing costs and social tensions will abate somewhat in the next few months.” It warned that political fragmentation could keep impairing France’s legislature. The numbers explain the worry. France’s 10-year bond yield topped 5% this week for the first time since 2002, the deficit runs at roughly 5.5% of economic output against an EU limit of 3%, and the finance ministry projects debt reaching 121.7% of GDP in 2027. Economy minister Roland Lescure said the government’s target of a 5% deficit is “intangible,” or non-negotiable. The street pressure has not eased: the FT reported hundreds of thousands marching again on Saturday. For background, see our report on Macron’s ban on “illegitimate” marches.

Alaska LNG Leaders Quit Over Russian Money Claims

The former chief executive of Polar Train LNG, which is developing a $25 billion liquefied natural gas export terminal on Alaska’s North Slope, has accused Russia’s Novatek of secretly financing and steering the project, the Financial Times reported. Novatek has been under U.S. sanctions tied to its Arctic LNG 2 project since 2023. Joel Riddle told the paper he resigned in September, saying he “felt uncomfortable that the Russian company Novatek was financing and ultimately controlling the strategic direction of the company.” Chief financial officer Dan Chandra and other senior managers left after him, according to a Newsmax wire summary of the FT report.

Polar LNG called Riddle a “disgruntled former employee” who had been terminated and said its work complies with U.S. law, ThePrint reported. The company said it had applied to the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control for a license to buy an unfinished gravity-based structure from Novatek. Novatek said it signed a memorandum of understanding with Polar in April and that any project would need U.S. and Russian approvals.

Bank of Israel Rejects a Crypto Workaround

In an unusually direct rebuke on Saturday, the Bank of Israel said cryptocurrencies “cannot serve as a means of circumventing sanctions,” Ynet reported. The statement answered Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who told Israel’s Economy Channel the country must prepare an alternative financial system that could operate around possible international banking sanctions, and named crypto and blockchain among the options. The central bank said the right course is to protect ties with Israel’s main trading partners and work to prevent sanctions. Netanyahu answered on Channel 14, The Times of Israel reported: “I thank the Bank of Israel for the advice, I listen, but I do what I think is right.”

Airfares Soar, and Young Jets Head for Scrap

Fewer Americans are flying, and airline bosses say they can live with that. CNBC reported that September fares ran more than 22% above a year earlier, and that U.S. checkpoint screenings are on pace for their first annual decline since 2020. Jet fuel on the Gulf Coast costs $4.63 a gallon, more than double a year ago. American, United, Delta and Southwest all cut their 2026 profit forecasts this month, with American alone expecting a loss. Boston flyers should watch JetBlue, which reports next week, followed by Frontier and Allegiant. Those airlines have traditionally courted price-sensitive customers, so their results could show whether budget travelers are pulling back, CNBC noted. If you are planning a winter escape, our guide to new Boston-to-Florida routes from Logan lists the options.

A shortage of engines is also forcing an odd trade: tearing apart nearly new planes. Data firm IBA Group counted 21 newest-generation jets scrapped from June 2025 through August, at an average age of 6.4 years, against a typical narrow-body retirement age of 21.7 years, CNBC reported Saturday. Pratt & Whitney engines for some Airbus A320neo jets are worth close to $17 million each, up 60% from 2019, and Spirit Airlines’ collapse in May put more of those planes on the market.

Week Ahead: The Fed and Big Tech’s AI Bills

Next week tests a shaky market. The Federal Reserve meets on October 27 and 28 and is widely expected to hold rates at 3.75% to 4%, a key inflation report also lands, and 163 S&P 500 companies report, led by Alphabet and Microsoft on Wednesday and Amazon on Thursday, CNBC reported. Meta fell more than 9% this week after posting negative free cash flow for the first time as a public company, and chip stocks are down more than 15% in October. Our Oct. 23 business report recaps Friday’s close.

The spending behind that anxiety is enormous. The Economist cites Boston Consulting Group figures showing about $360 billion spent on AI computing power last year, with transactions projected to reach $2.3 trillion by 2030, roughly the size of today’s global crude oil trade. CME Group and the Intercontinental Exchange hope to launch computing-power futures once regulators approve them. More on the hardware side is in our look at AI chip production and new U.S. chip plants.

Boston Business: Robot Dog Deal Splits a Waltham Company

Closer to home, hundreds of Boston Dynamics employees have signed a letter asking the Waltham robotics maker to stop a $1.3 million deal that supplies four Spot robot dogs to Immigration and Customs Enforcement through Connecticut company Radeco, The Boston Globe reported. The company said about half of the roughly 300 signers did not give their names, that they are a minority of its 1,400 workers, and that its terms bar using the robots as weapons or for intimidation.

And in commentary on money and politics, The American Prospect’s Robert Kuttner took aim at former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin’s New York Times op-ed. Rubin wrote that “the markets are not pricing in” the risk of interference in the midterms. Kuttner wrote that the piece confirms “the business elite doesn’t really care about democracy,” and pressed Rubin to back re-regulating finance and taxing concentrated wealth instead.

Sources

• CNBC: Moody’s holds steady on France’s credit rating
• Reuters via Investing.com: France spared Moody’s ratings downgrade
• Financial Times: France avoids downgrade from Moody’s
• French Economy Ministry statement by Roland Lescure (in French)
• Financial Times: Hundreds of thousands protest in France
• Financial Times: US executives quit $25bn gas venture
• Newsmax Wires: Former CEO says Russian firm backed Alaska gas venture
• ThePrint: Alaska LNG terminal and Novatek funding
• Ynet: Bank of Israel rejects Netanyahu’s crypto plan
• The Times of Israel: Netanyahu responds to the Bank of Israel
• CNBC: Fewer people are flying as airfare soars
• CNBC: Why popular airplanes are getting scrapped years early
• CNBC: Next week brings major risks for the stock market
• The Economist: AI compute is the new oil and needs a new market
• The Boston Globe: Boston Dynamics workers oppose robot dog use by ICE
• The American Prospect: Robert Rubin, Faux Statesman