Joining a chorus of ailing U.S. automakers, Toyota Motor Co. (TM) yesterday (Monday) forecast its first operating loss in 71 years on plummeting demand and sharp appreciation of the Japanese yen. The announcement prompted Moody’s Investors Service to consider downgrading the company’s top-rated credit.

But the news may have bigger implications for Japan’s entire economy, as the country’s exports continue to take a beating from sagging worldwide demand for its products.

Japanese exports plunged 26.7% in November from a year ago. Shipments to the U.S. slid an unprecedented 34%, Japan’s Finance Ministry said. A strong yen, which makes Japanese goods more expensive, combined with deflated consumer spending, is hammering Japanese exporters.

Toyota will post a $1.7 billion (150 billion yen) loss in the year through March, it said in a statement, scrapping a previous forecast of a $6.6 billion. The last time Toyota posted an operating loss

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by Edward Hugh: Barcelonabr /br /Yesterday's comments by Bank of Japan Governor Masaaki Shirakawa that conditions in Japan's economy are severe and that monetary conditions are rapidly tightening should not be taken lightly in my opinion. Viewed alongside last weeks data revision which showed that Japan’s gross domestic product contracted much more rapidly in the third quarter than initially thought, and the recent admission by Japan’s Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa that employment conditions are also nowbecoming “severe.” it is clear that we are in the process of settling-in for what promises to be quite a long and hard recession.br /br /Revised data released last week showed that gross domestic product fell on quarter-by-quarter basis by 0.5 percent during the three months up to September, as compared with the preliminary estimate of only a 0.1 per cent decline. Year on year, the economy is now thought to have also contracted by ...

Last week’s gold rally has fizzled out. But Ed Bugos says we could be in line for very bullish move. Outside of Japan, countries are inflating rapidly, which is extremely bearish for paper currency. And the supply and demand fundamentals of physical gold remain bullish.

More from The Daily Reckoning:

The late November rally in gold prices wasn’t quite as spectacular as mid-September’s gain, but it was still impressive. There was good follow-through too, though the momentum softened as bulls knocked on resistance near $850.

The rally was a no-brainer. There is a strong line of support at $700, which was resistance during 2006 and the first half of 2007. Moreover, the market was, and is, oversold.

The catalyst was news that the U.S. government had to bail out Citigroup (NYSE:C), the world’s largest bank by revenues. The event has given way to new concerns about the economy, which weighed on

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In early Friday morning trading in the Far East, both gold and silver were taken down sharply. Volume was thin in both metals, so it wasn’t hard for someone to influence the price. Gold gained most of it back, but once the Sydney close was in…the price pressure showed up again until shortly after London opened…then rose again until the London p.m. fix was in…and it was straight down hill from there.

The low price of the day was set at the Comex close. All in all, the gold price was dropped $60 in a thirty four hour period…from a high of $776 at 4:00 a.m. New York time on October 30th…to the low at the Comex close at 1:30 p.m. New York time yesterday. I’m sure that the boyz were proud of their month-end tape-painting…which is exactly what it was.

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In early Friday morning trading in the Far East, both gold and silver were taken down sharply. Volume was thin in both metals, so it wasn’t hard for someone to influence the price. Gold gained most of it back, but once the Sydney close was in…the price pressure showed up again until shortly after London opened…then rose again until the London p.m. fix was in…and it was straight down hill from there.

The low price of the day was set at the Comex close. All in all, the gold price was dropped $60 in a thirty four hour period…from a high of $776 at 4:00 a.m. New York time on October 30th…to the low at the Comex close at 1:30 p.m. New York time yesterday. I’m sure that the boyz were proud of their month-end tape-painting…which is exactly what it was.

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Consumer shows spooky signs of weakness… recession now unavoidable? How’s your 401(k)? Some scary stats on the average retirement savings plan. Haunting mortgage data… 10 million Americans suffer “negative equity”. U.S. finance capitalism dead or dying… Byron King on the new paradigm for global economic power. Eric Fry on investing during the post-crash bounce. Plus, one “surefire” sector during these frightening times.

Boo!

We begin today with a Halloween hypothetical: If you’re a mainstream economist or financial journalist, what’s the scariest possible scenario that could arise from an economic crisis?

Answer: That the ephemeral specter of the American consumer, whose purchases now make up over 70% of economic activity in I.O.U.S.A., would stop spending.

Uh-ho. In the third quarter

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U.S. stocks soar!  Currencies rally!  Consumer Confidence at an all-time low!  Getting off the bench! And Now… Today’s Pfennig!

Well… The trading theme remained in place yesterday, but this time it was reversed. For those of you new to class, or any of you who have been playing horse hooky, the trading theme that has gripped the markets since August is: The deeper, darker, and more dangerous the U.S. economy and financial meltdown, including the credit market’s locked status, the dollar gets bought… If there is any sign of light to all this mess, the dollar gets sold, for whenever the markets get their minds off the mess, they are reminded of awful fundamentals for the dollar.

So…

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Source: Adrian Day’s Global Analyst  10/17/2008
Adrian Day’s reputation for discovering big winners adds credibility to the global investing pioneer’s insights, which he is sharing with The Gold Report subscribers via excerpts from recent articles in Adrian Day’s Global Analyst. Acknowledging what trying times these are for investors, in this first segment of a five-part series, Day discusses what led to the current economic crisis and how he sees Washington’s $700 billion (and counting) bailout playing out.

The Current Crisis—Causes and Consequences

The house of cards built on easy credit has finally come tumbling down, triggered by the failure of one of the most flimsy of the cards, subprime mortgages. We’ll look at the causes—it’s important to understand causes if one has any reasonable chance of analyzing the present and assessing the outlook—and weigh the likely outcome of the government’s actions.

Not to keep you in suspense any longer, we …

Gold was strong in the overseas markets, but it started down with the New York open, declined sharply in the half-hour to the mid-morning point, rallied back to the close of the COMEX and eased slightly in the Globex to finish at $832.20, down $17.70 from Friday. Overnight, gold is trending higher.

Good day...And what a day it was! As I stated in yesterday's Pfennig, Columbus day is just sort of a holiday for the markets. These 'semi-holidays' can create some volatile trading, as not all of the markets are open and many desks are short staffed. So with the Federal Reserve and the banking system closed, the equity markets had the largest one day gain in over seven decades.