No thanks to the collapse of the U.S. mortgage market, Toyota lost its place today as the world’s largest automaker by stock value to the VW Group.

According to Bloomberg, Volkswagen shares are up by a staggering 190 percent this year, and the company's stocks was one of only four in the Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Index that managed to advance yesterday. By contrast, Toyota has seen its shares drop 56 percent after its peak at 8,340 yen in February 2007. Well, as they say, easy come, easy go and that stabds for both companies...

Source: Bloomberg