Two positives for Toyota

Article Excerpt

TOYOTA MOTOR CO. ADRs $124 (New York symbol TM; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; ADRs outstanding: 1.6 billion; Market cap: $198.4 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.9; Dividend yield: 1.1%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.toyota.com) sold 193,394 vehicles in the U.S. in July 2013. That’s up 17.3% from 164,898 in July 2012. The company continues to benefit from rising demand for hybrid cars: sales of its Prius hybrid subcompact jumped 40.0%. Rising home construction also helped push up truck sales by 11.5%. Toyota should also continue to gain from the Japanese government’s move to weaken the yen, because it makes the company’s cars cheaper for buyers outside Japan. It also raises the value of the foreign currencies that Toyota’s international operations earn. Toyota is a buy. buy…