Moody's Investors Service on March 17 lowered Turkey's rating outlook to negative from stable, citing "the continuing erosion of the country's institutional strength, its weaker growth outlook, heightened pressure on public and external accounts and the increased risk of a credit shock". Moody's kept its issuer rating one notch below investment grade at 'Ba1'. The lira was trading at 3.6273 per dollar as of 8am local time on March 20 versus 3.6365 on March 17. Last September, Moody's cut Turkey's credit rating to junk. And in January this year, Fitch Ratings followed suit, stripping the country of its last remaining investment grade. "The impact of ongoing political and geopolitical tensions on domestic confidence, and the heightened external pressures that led to a steep depreciation of the lira and high inflation, will suppress growth in the near term relative to expectations last year," Moody's said in the statement.