After years of struggling to compete with Amazon, brick-and-mortar retailers have been closing hundreds of stores amid declining sales, Money magazine reported today. Analysts are even predicting that one-quarter of America's malls could close within the next five years. A report released last week by Moody's Investors Service indicates that the situation is worse for retailers now than it was during the doldrums brought on by the financial crisis. The new report gives ratings of Caa or worse—defined as "subject to very high credit risk"—to 22 major retailers. That's up from 19 when a similar report was issued in February, and it tops the high (also 19) recorded during the Great Recession.
