Toyota Slashes Annual Profit Forecast

Toyota(TM Quote) said second-quarter net profit fell 69% to 139.8 billion yen ($1.4 billion) and slashed its annual profit forecast on falling sales and a stronger yen.

The Japanese automaker cut its forecast for the year ending in March 2009 to 550 billion yen from a prior forecast of 1.25 trillion yen. The company reported year-earlier earnings of 1.72 trillion yen.

Second-quarter sales fell 8% to 5.98 trillion yen, Toyota said Thursday.

Toyota, the world's second-largest automaker behind General Motors(GM Quote), reported earlier this week that U.S. auto sales in October declined 26%.