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Shares in Toyota Motor tumbled down 12.6 percent when its stock resumed trade on Friday after the world's biggest automaker shocked investors with a warning that profits this year would hit a 13-year low.
Toyota [ TM 79.43 
+1.34 (+1.72%) ] was untraded with sell orders at 3,310 yen in the morning, after falling 16.5 percent on Wall Street amid big problems for American automakers who are lobbying for government assistance as sales slide.
The broader market declined sharply on Toyota's surprise outlook cut, with many likening it to the "Sony shock" in April 2003, when a huge quarterly loss by Sony sparked a two-day sell-off.
But some investors said the situation was even worse for Toyota, given the deterioration in the global economy.
"The Sony shock came when the overall economy was on the rise, so it was taken as the end of the bad news, but this time, it is in the middle of an economic slowdown," said Tomomi Yamashita, fund manager of Shinkin Asset Management.
"Compared with the Sony shock, it will probably take Toyota's share price longer to return to a solid recovery path," he said.
In Tokyo, Toyota shares fell 10 percent on Thursday ahead of the profit warning after a newspaper reported that its operating profit could fall below 1 trillion yen ($10 billion) in the year to March 2009, less than half the profit seen last year.
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