Gwynn Guilford

The numbers: Just, wow. Net profit for Toyota’s fiscal year (which ended in March 2013) came in at ¥962.1 billion ($9.7 billion), roundly trouncing analyst forecasts for ¥912 billion, while sales for the year were ¥22 trillion, up nearly 19% on the year before. And operating profit, at ¥1.32 trillion, was the best in five years (paywall). For the most recent quarter, Toyota reported net profit of ¥313.9 billion, more than doubling the ¥121 billion it made in the first quarter of 2012.

Germany may be on the mend. Industrial production grew 1.2% month-on-month in March; analysts had expected a contraction. Energy output drove a lot of this: It was 4.0% higher than in February, which itself had been 0.8% up on January. And that’s after inclement weather in March suppressed construction activity, which should therefore make up ground in April. Here’s a look at the month-on-month trend:

China announced this week that it will formulate plans to permit more capital to flow in and out of the country, a key element of yuan convertibility, and liberalize its interest rates (link in Chinese), by the end of the year.

This item has been updated.

Economist Stephen Roach recently distilled exactly why it’s so important that China move away from unsustainable growth propped up by exports, infrastructure projects and real estate. ”China’s services sector requires about 35% more jobs per unit of GDP than do manufacturing and construction,” he wrote. In essence, China’s service-sector growth is a measure of how sustainable its overall economic growth will be.

Indonesia’s economy grew at just 6.02% in the first quarter of 2013, compared with the previous year. That’s the slowest growth in two years, and it’s in large part due to flagging export demand.

Iron Man 3 opens today in North America, but it’s been playing in Chinese theaters since the May Day holiday and has already made a killing, bringing in a record-breaking $21.2 million on its first day alone.

Remember when Chinese people got all mad that Ikea was making Swedish meatballs in China, even though it had been spared the horse meat scandal? Here’s why. Every time they thought they were eating fresh meat, there was a solid chance that they were instead ingesting the flesh of rat, mink, or fox. Or perhaps the meat was rancid, diseased, and doused in pesticides or peroxide.

The European Commission messed up a little. In its semi-annual report, the EC says it now expects the euro zone economy to shrink by 0.4% in 2013 (pdf). That’s a big reduction from the 1.0% growth it forecast just a year ago (pdf)—and an even starker reversal on the 1.3% growth it anticipated this year in the report it published back in fall 2011 (pdf).

There was a slew of purchasing managers’ index data for Europe out today.  Here’s what you need to know about the outlook for EU manufacturing.

China’s looking increasingly shaky. Yesterday’s manufacturing data showed that new export orders are shrinking. The purchasing managers’ index out today from HSBC and Markit confirmed the drop. Today’s data also reveal sharply falling input prices, hinting that overcapacity continues to dog China’s manufacturing sector:

The numbers: Awesome. Net income for the three quarters ending in March (Japan’s fiscal Q4) was ¥48.7 billion ($500 million), up from ¥14.0 billion the previous quarter. Net operating revenue jumped to ¥145.8 billion, compared with ¥96.3 billion in the quarter that ended in December 2012.

UK purchasing managers’ index hints that the island nation’s economic fortunes are increasingly decoupled from those of the euro zone, where  conditions continue to worsen. At 49.8, the UK’s April PMI indicates an ongoing decline in business activity (anything less than 50 represents a contraction in output; more than 50 shows an increase).

Not everyone was psyched about Jason Collins’s coming out yesterday. There was Chris Broussard’s tirade on ESPN, later praised by Christian pundit Pat Robertson. And, of course, some exuberantly homophobic comment trolls.

The numbers: Fine. The Japanese wireless carrier and internet company announced fiscal-year earnings of ¥3.4 trillion ($35 billion), up from ¥3.2 for the previous fiscal year. Net income fell 7.8%, though, coming in at ¥289 billion.

Up from 12.0% in February, that translates to about 19.2 million people jobless. Here’s a look:

China might be cracking down on luxury spending in watches, cars, banquets and really foul liquor. But the market for pricey fish parts continues relatively unabated. US border officials recently busted a ring smuggling bladders of an endangered fish used for medicinal Chinese soups (here are some images of these prized bladders). The amount of bladders they seized could have sold for more than $3.6 million, said prosecutors. And there are many other smuggling rings out there.

Alibaba, China’s biggest e-commerce company, just announced that it is paying $586 million for an 18% stake in Sina Weibo, the online ad company’s Twitter-like social media platform. Alibaba will have the option to raise its stake to 30% in the future.

The real Michael Jordan is standing up—against Qiaodan, his Chinese imitator, in a Shanghai court. Today was the first day of trial in the lawsuit brought by Michael Jordan—you know, “Air Jordan”—against Qiaodan Sports Co. (乔丹, an ostensible Mandarin transliteration of “Jordan,” pronounced “chee-ow dahn.”) The suit will test the Chinese legal system’s recognition of personal trademarks, something increasingly important to the country as it seeks to upgrade its protection of intellectual property.

The numbers: Ouch. Sure, revenue was up 40% from Q1 last year, hitting $961 million, as Baidu announced after market close yesterday. And net profit for the first quarter came in at $328.9 million, an 8.5% increase year-on-year. But the company missed analyst estimates; so far today, the stock has tumbled 7.4%.

Under its new governor, Haruhiko Kuroda, the Bank of Japan has not only become a lot more aggressive; it’s also acting a lot more bullish.

We’re coming up on one month since quarterly earnings season blew in, bringing with it dour updates on the state of the recession-bound European economy. We’ve pieced together some of the color that’s come through post-earnings conference calls. While Italy and Spain continue to look fairly miserable, the news isn’t uniformly bad. The United Kingdom and Ireland seem to be showing signs of life. And the outlook for Germany can seem downright upbeat.

The eight-story factory building just outside Dhaka that collapsed yesterday has now killed at least 228 workers, reports Reuters—most of them women. The death toll has climbed as an unknown number of people remain trapped in the rubble.

The UK economy grew 0.3% in the first quarter of 2013 compared with Q4 2012, according to preliminary data. This suggests that the country avoided a triple-dip recession that was feared. Though data over the last month offered reason for hope that wouldn’t happen, the Q1 GDP data still came as a surprise, as economists had expected only 0.1% growth. Here’s a look at what happened instead: