More gloom for Woolworths Ltd as its credit rating was lowered by Moody’s this week. Last week the company released its half-yearly results that were poor as expected. It wrote down its investment in the Masters business and it is suffering from a bitter retail war with arch-rival Coles. The rating was lowered one notch to Baa2, 2 steps above junk bond status and reflecting the challenges being faced by the new CEO Brad Banducci. Woolworths reported a loss of $973 million for the six months ended 31 December compared to a profit of $1.28 billion a year earlier.