Moody's Investor's Services, the bond rating agency, has notified the New York Times Company that its bond rating may decline, according to Editor & Publisher. Without changing the current Baaa3 rating (at least for the moment), NYTCo's outlook has been downgraded from "stable" to "negative.""The change in the rating outlook to negative reflects Moody's concern that a continued deterioration in the company's advertising revenue could make it increasingly challenging for the company to bring metrics in line with the rating in 2009 as anticipated in the prior stable rating outlook," wrote senior analyst John E. Puchalla and Corporate Finance Group Managing Director Alexandra S. Parker.A Baa3 rating qualifies as investment grade, enabling many funds to hold its unsecured debt. If the rating were to decline to below investment grade (and it is perilously close now), many funds would no long hold NYTCo's debt securities, and their prices would decline....(Read Full Post)