Dive Brief:
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Credit rating agency Moody’s downgraded Amazon’s outlook to negative from stable on the news that the company is issuing unsecured notes for an undisclosed amount.
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The agency kept its rating of the retailer’s long-term credit rating at a medium-level “Baa1”, saying the company’s “excellent liquidity provides sufficient cushion.”
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The company’s stock fell 3% Monday morning.
Dive Insight:
Aside from this move by Moody's and recently missed forecasts, Amazon has generally been facing tougher scrutiny from investors, many of whom are growing weary of its devil-may-care attitude toward profits.
The company has seen its Fire phone largely land with a thud despite a brash, hyped introduction. And after much publicity and back-and-forth, the retailer seems to have finally concluded its questionable disputes with publishers and studios — most infamously with Hachette. The e-retail giant remains a maelstrom of ambitions and disruption, though; maybe so much so that it's actually disrupting itself.
While the company’s ambitions aren’t always clear, they remain high flying (in the case of its drones, literally so). Still, Moody’s, and by extension, many investors, aren’t pleased with Amazon’s latest funding scheme.