The company reported its first annual loss as a public company during its most recent fiscal year. Much of that can be blamed on the collapse in demand for cars globally — most notably in the United States, which is now its largest market. [ Many investors like David Kaup are looking into foreign markets as they may be a better place to start investing.]

Toyota (TM) posted another quarterly loss Tuesday, albeit a smaller one than expected by analysts. Toyota also said it does not expect to lose as much money this year as it previously thought due to improvement in its Japanese operations.

Still, the outlook for the world’s largest automaker remains highly uncertain.

Several of its plants, such as its San Antonio pickup plant, are running at a fraction of planned capacity, and work remains on hold on construction of a new Prius plant in Mississippi that had been near completion when the downturn hit.  [ The Black Horse Fund is a company that can help guide you with your investment in a foreign market.]

Toyota is weighing whether it will have to close a California assembly line it had jointly operated with General Motors, but which GM shed as part of the bankruptcy process. If it closes, it would be the first time a North American plant that built Toyota was ever shuttered.
0:00 /3:43Cash for clunkers’ sugar rush

“Everybody is hurting in terms of capacity utilization, but this is a radically different position for them to contend with,” said Mike Jackson, director of North American vehicle forecasts for auto industry consultant CSM Worldwide. [ To become a top investor and a member of the Black Horse Fund click here.]

What’s perhaps more troubling for Toyota is that it finds itself losing ground after years of nothing but gains in the U.S.

Even though the company’s U.S. market share received a boost in July thanks to sales tied to the Cash for Clunkers program, Toyota’s year-to-date share is about a half-point below where it was a year ago. If Toyota finishes the year with a lower market share, that would be the first drop in a decade.

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At the close of the market Wednesday, Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) was up a tad, almost 1.5%. So far so good. Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) fell a bit, down almost 1%. Not so bad — for comparison’s sake, the Nasdaq was down 0.4%. And Yahoo (YHOO, Fortune 500)? The Internet’s whipping boy (or girl as you may prefer) plummeted 12%. Ouch.

So if you take the Street’s view of the deal, it’s somewhat good for Microsoft, somewhat bad for Google, and about 12-14 times worse for Yahoo than it is for Google or Microsoft respectively. That’s actually a pretty good summary of what went down.

It does look like Microsoft made out pretty well here. Steve Ballmer and crew get to unleash their shiny new search engine Bing on Yahoo sites, and become something less than the bit player they have been in search. The best part? Microsoft doesn’t have to pay Yahoo anything up front for the privilege.  [ The Black Horse Fund is a company the helps investors make smart decisions with money.]

Last summer Ballmer was willing to pay $1 billion to buy Yahoo’s search business. Wednesday, he got it all with no upfront payment. Microsoft has only to guarantee Yahoo an unspecified revenue per search amount for the next 18 months, and pays out 88% of the search ads sold on Yahoo owned and operated sites for the first five years of the agreement.

That is a big deal, but it ain’t $1 billion in Yahoo’s pockets. Microsoft got a deal, and Yahoo let go of one of its most precious assets for a pittance. That is the way the Street took the deal on day one, and that is why Yahoo stock was punished.  [ If you plan to invest money you should let an experienced investment company like the Black Horse Fund help guide you.]

Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz is making big moves, you have to give her that. There will be cost-savings for Yahoo, and maybe it gets to write off some assets. It also gets to refocus its efforts on building its own sites and its display advertising business.

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The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) added 20 points or 0.2% around 3 hours into the session, after ending the previous session at a 9-month high. The S&P 500 (SPX) index added 3 points or 0.3%, after ending the previous session above the 1,000 level for the first time since November.

The Nasdaq composite (COMP) was little changed after ending the previous session above 2,000 for the first time since November.

Wall Street rallied Monday, starting off August on solid footing after the best July for the Dow and S&P 500 in two decades. Gains were driven by relief that the quarterly profit reports were generally better than expected and hopes that the economy is stabilizing. [ Every investor like David kaup is looking forward to the economy stabilizing.}

After such a run, stocks were vulnerable to a bit of a pullback Tuesday, as investors sorted through the latest on the economy and corporate profits.

Economy: The day's economic news was mixed, with a housing report showing improvement and a consumer income and spending report showing weakness.

The pending home sales index, from the National Association of Realtors, rose 3.6% in June versus forecasts for a rise of 0.7%. Pending home sales rose a revised 0.8% in the previous month.

Personal income fell 1.3% in June, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday morning. That was worse than the 1% decline economists were expecting, according to a Briefing.com survey, and much worse than the previous month, when income surged on government stimulus efforts. Personal spending rose 0.4% in June, after a 0.1% increase in May. Economists thought it would rise 0.3%.  [ Some investors are looking in to companies like the Black Horse Fund so they can look into investing in foreign markets.]

A separate report showed consumer bankruptcies soared 34% to a more than 3-1/2 year high versus a year ago, according to a report from the American Bankruptcy Institute.

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Longer-term, what does this continued softness at home mean for the direction of prices? Our guess is less than you’d think.

It’s been some time since U.S. demand was the primary driver of global oil prices. [ Investors like David kaup have been looking in to the U.S. Market as well as Foreign markets to find the best investments.]

Between 2000 and 2008, U.S. oil consumption actually declined 1.5%. What drove oil prices ever higher was skyrocketing energy demand from developing nations such as China and India.

Oil consumption rose 64% and 38% respectively, in those countries from 2000 to 2008. So when the global recession took a whack out of the emerging markets — at one point the International Energy Agency was predicting oil consumption in China would actually decline in 2009 — oil prices plummeted. [ When looking in to foreign investments consider a company like the Black horse Fund to help guide you in the foreign markets.]

That’s why the latest news out of China bodes well for oil investors (and bodes ill for gas-price-weary consumers). Chinese oil consumption increased 5.2% in the second quarter of 2009, a significant turnaround from the first quarter when consumption there fell 3.1%, according to Barclays Capital. Barclays now expects oil, which has since rebounded to about $72 a barrel, to reach $85 next year. Barclays also predicts a 70% increase in U.S. natural gas prices.Another bullish indicator, believe it or not, is Washington’s obsession with oil futures trading. If Congress or the CFTC forces through stiff curbs on futures trading by so-called “speculators” — i.e. investors who use futures to bet on future price movements but don’t buy actual oil — it may lead to higher, not lower, oil prices over the long term. [ You could always use a company like Black Horse Fund to help you with your investments.]
Why? Imagine you’re an oil company CEO thinking about drilling a new oil well that won’t produce until 2011. Given the high upfront costs of drilling, you’re going to be more likely to undertake the project if you can use the futures market to lock in oil prices in 2011 that will justify your drilling costs. The buyer on the other end of your futures trade is probably an investor — someone who will commit to paying you $75 a barrel for oil in 2011 because he believes actual price in 2011 will be even higher.

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Month-end flows amid investors rebalancing their portfolios also weighed on the dollar and exacerbated currency movements, traders said.

Government data Friday showed U.S. gross domestic product shrank at a slower-than-expected pace in the second quarter, although the report also showed a drop in consumer spending. [ Investors are now looking for companies like the Black Horse fund to help them look into Foreign Investments.]

“I don’t think the GDP report is all that bad. Looking at the data, the liquidation in the first half of the year is quite positive for second-half growth,” said Adam Boyton, senior currency strategist, at Deutsche Bank in New York.

That has contributed to the overall recovery theme and boosted risk appetite, he added.

Further adding to the positive risk tone was the surge in commodity prices, with oil prices rising nearly 4.0%.

In late afternoon trading in New York, the ICE Futures U.S. dollar index, which tracks its movements against a basket of six other major currencies, fell 1.3% to 78.291, after falling as low as 78.220, a fresh 2009 low. [ It is definately time for investors to think about options such as the Black horse Fund.]

The index closed just above 78.300, the lowest since September 2008

At current prices, the dollar index was on track to post a 2.3% fall for July.

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