Moody’s cites inflation, lira devaluation, unorthodox policy Turkey’s rating was cut deeper into junk by Moody’s Investors Service as balance-of-payments risks mount and authorities struggle to stabilize the lira and restore foreign-reserve buffers. The nation was downgraded to B3 from B2 on Friday by Moody’s, which also changed its outlook to stable from negative. The rating company pointed to odds that Turkey’s current-account deficit will probably exceed earlier expectations by a wide margin, which increases its external financing needs just as global financial conditions tighten. “The authorities are having to resort to increasingly unorthodox measures in an attempt to stabilize the currency and restore foreign-currency buffers,” analysts Kathrin Muehlbronner and Alejandro Olivo wrote in a statement.“It is unlikely that the increasingly complex set of regulatory, fiscal and macroprudential measures will be effective in restoring some degree of macroeconomic stability.” Moody’s estimates that the country’s current-account deficit will be close […]