Toyota just released its version of bad news to the financial community, in the form of a quarterly profit decline. Despite a year-to-year income loss of around $560 million on rising plastics and steel costs and a weak dollar, which looks like a paper cut considering the recent fortunes of its closest competitor, GM, the company saw a 4.2 percent rise in sales, a market-share gain of 1.1 percent in the US and record earnings over FY2004, and has a market cap larger than that of GM, Ford, Volkswagen, PSA Citroen Peugeot and DaimlerChrysler combined. Boo freaking hoo. [Update: Don't forget this bit of good news.]
Toyota Has Biggest Profit Drop in 7 Quarters on Costs [Bloomberg]