Hard to believe but Toyota Motor's (TM) stock is hurting

Toyota Motor Corporation (NYSE:TM) shares hit $104.50 today then closed around $105 factoring after-hours activity. That's a new 12 month low for Toyota shares and if you think $100 for a single share is expensive, think again.

Over the past six months, Toyota's stock has fallen from grace. Once trumping around in the $120's to $130's, the stock has come down in price to settle around $100 a share. It's a harsh reality for a company that has been kicking around American Ford (F) and General Motors (GM) but let's face it, do you drive American?

GM has been holding its own when comparing it to Toyota's stock, I won't even include Ford because it's beyond sad.

Then there's Honda (HMC) which has been falling along with Toyota, but Asian stocks as a whole have been getting crushed lately.

Today Asian stocks plunged on media reports that Merrill Lynch will probably write down $2.5 billion, more due to the US subprime mortgage crisis. Toyota Motor and Canon pushed Japanese exporters lower after the yen strengthened against the Dollar.

But Asian Markets aside, Toyota is holding the holy grail of all cars, the Prius...

Prius $20,950 MSRP [1]

Touring $23,220 MSRP [1]

Toyota Motor Corp. is the world's largest hybrid seller, since Toyota introduced the Prius in 1997. Toyota will sell about 400,000 hybrids worldwide this year and expects the level to reach at least 1 million a year by the early 2010s. Rising fuel prices and stricter emission rules have boosted sales the past three years, particularly in the U.S.

Honda has said it expects to sell at least 200,000 units globally of the new, as yet unnamed five-seat hybrid, with the Civic hybrid and the new sports car model contributing the rest.

The U.S. will probably account for about half of those sales, John Mendel, executive vice president of Honda's U.S. unit, said in an interview today. ``It's obvious that we'll have a lot of that volume,'' Mendel said.

Honda released its Insight hybrid in 1999, two years after Prius, the world's first hybrid car. The Insight was discontinued last year. Honda currently sells fewer than 100,000 hybrid vehicles a year.

Trash on the stock now, but with gas pushing insane prices and never coming back down but 2 cents here and there, wouldn't you rather drive a Prius?

Again, do you buy American? Neither do investors. Toyota's stock will come back.