Utmost Faith in Toyota Hybrids

Good Luck !
I sold my Toyota stock when it hit $100. The company is wonderful, but the stock is overvalued IMO.
OTOH, I am quite happy to sit on my Honda stock for a couple of years. I figure it is good for 15% annual appreciation.

My best investment (hoping, at least) is wind. I bought in after the majority of private speculators and 'growth managers' had fled, after funding the companies . I expect ~ 300% returns in the 3 - 5 year timeframe.

 

Good Luck! It's been a while since I've made any individual stock investments when I think that a company is poised to make it big. Toyota should have a program for car owners who don't have the upfront cash to accumulate shares through a monthly payment without a broker fee.

 

Remember: the Prius depends on gasoline too. If gas becomes too too expensive, then all-electric cars will take over - if we're allowed to own and drive any private vehicles when oil becomes that hard to get and valuable.

Do NOT purchase IPOs!
To quote a stock valuation lecture: "If you can get into an IPO, it's an IPO you don't want to get into. Companies hire out investment banks to go and rally up institutional investors with billions of dollars to invest in their IPOs. If the investment is good, mutual funds, investment banks, and other institutions will fully buy all of the shares sold at an IPO. If it's a bad investment, mutual funds, investment banks, and so forth will not invest in the IPO; this leaves unsuspecting, innocent individual investors like you, me, or any other average Joe who may be deemed gullble enough to invest in such garbage IPOs. Save your money."

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Did some number crunching for you.
http://www.toyota.co.jp/en/ir/stock/outline.html
Number of shares issued: 3,609,997,492
Number of shareholders: 352,029
Fiscal year ends March 31
Listed on the NY exchange

Schmika, you have become part of an elite group. Really, 352,029 share holders is not many for a large publically traded company. Most are, of course, humongous mutual funds and banks, which might be what you'd expect with a thriving company.
Each share holder owns an avg. of 10,255 stocks.
There are only 174 foreign individuals who own a unit of 100 or more stocks.

The stock lost some ground between 2000 and the middle of 2005 but has made a strong comeback since the middle of 2005. The price of the stock is continuing to climb.

Calculated the P/E (price of the stock against earnings per share), using the 2005 annual report*. P/E = 11.23. The industry standard is at 14.7, according to Reuters.
This means that Toyota stock may be undervalued within the automotive industry, in other words, a good buy.

Also looked at the P/CFO (price of the stock against cash flow of operations per share). Cash flow of operations measures how much money a company is making (or losing) within it's sales and costs of operation. P/CFO = 6.08. Industry standard is at 4.9. In other words, Toyota was more profitable than most of it's industry mates. (But in all fairness, I think GM is dragging these avgs. down!)

Profit Margin. Here's a place where Toyota shines at 7% vs. 2.5% in the industry.

Return on assets, a measurement of management efficiency, very nice at 5%. Industry std. at 2.4% This means that Toyota management makes the company's assets work hard at generating returns. 5% is good in ANY industry, especially so in automobiles.

Return on equity is not drop-dead wonderful at 13.6% but still better than industry's 7.8%

Toyota's continuing investment in research is impressive. Shows an eye for the future. http://www.toyota.co.jp/en/ir/financial/high-light.html

*http://www.toyota.co.jp/en/ir/library/annual/2005/

I guess the bottom line is, would I purchase Toyota stock?
Have been considering it but the monies (mine and my husband's) that were set aside for long-term holdings are in J&J and Pepsi. I'd have to sell those and then transfer those bucks to Toyota. Just too lazy, I guess. Also, neither of us knows diddley about the automotive markets, other than we love our Foxy. Hmm. Just on the basis of that affection, I should be putting ALL our retirement money into Foxy's mother-company.

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If you have important monies invested in any stock, not just Toyota, please consider setting a "drop" price. That's the price at which you want an automatic sell. Of course, the drop price will be higher than what you paid and enough so you'd get a happy return on your investment. You might wait to set the drop until after the stock has risen too high and you expect it to begin coming down. That way, once it hits that point, it is sold and you are protected from any further declines. And would have still made a nice return on your investment.

In other words, develop an investment strategy if you haven't already done so.

If the money you put into Toyota is "play" money, then feel free to just watch the price go up and down and enjoy the ride! Sorta like watching a football game on television.

 

Don't be too greedy. Set a point at which you'll cash in your chips and walk away from the table.

You know what they call folks who use the rhythm method of contraception - parents!

Greedy investors who similarly allow their emotions to carry them away, are called suckers. Do NOT fall in love with any company's stock!

 

d

Do you happen to know the P/E historical avg. of the Tokyo Stock Exchange (is it the Nikkei)?

 

Opps! EricGo was probably right to sell at $100.

Went back to today's numbers, instead of those from the annual report, and they bring the P/E up to above industry standard. Experts are recommending "holds", not buys, of Toyota stocks.

We missed the boat, looks like EricGo got off at the right time.

Still a good company and the price of the stock MIGHT keep rising but it seems to be overvalued over $100.

 

weeelll .. if the experts agree with me, that is a worrisome development.
If I were to buy Toyota stock now, it would be with an intent to keep for years.

If Detroit has a good quarter, Toyota stock may drop a fair amount. I would buy then.

 

Yep. Cramer was pumping Toyota's stock. Buy best of breed was the advice. I like Toyota, but didn't like the PE. I bought Tata Motors (TTM) instead. It's gone up about 8 pts. since and I'm a happy camper.

 

i would love to invest in Toyota stock but Big Caps simply move too slowly. my rule, dont invest in stock that costs more than $20 a share and is from a company that does more than 5 billion in revenue. (actually a better target is 2.5 billion but i do have exceptions)

AND

leave the speculation to the experts. there are many investment options where mutual funds can be steered towards certain investment types. JANUS small Caps mutuals is a good option