Japanese automakers vulnerable to one-two punch of Iran war, yen rally

A lot of cars are lined up for importing and exporting cars to the port.Kokouu | E+ | Getty ImagesJapanese automakers are looking vulnerable to fallout from the Iran war and any turnaround in the yen.Toyota, Honda and Nissan benefited in their most recent quarterly reports from a historically weak currency, with the first two upgrading their full-year forecasts and the latter seeing its first profit in about two years. But outside factors might not be so cooperative going forward.The U.S. Treasury and Japan's Ministry of Finance jointly coordinated a rare yen-buying intervention in early August in a historic move, after the currency fell to 40-year lows past 163 per dollar. Since Japanese automakers traditionally rely on a weak yen to make their exported vehicles cheaper and boost competitiveness in global markets, the actions raised cautionary flags."If government intervention is to strengthen yen, this would be negative for Japanese automakers," said Vincent Sun, senior equity analyst at Morningstar.Stock Chart IconStock chart icon JPYA strong yen would force automakers to decide between raising prices in foreign markets, which could lead to market-share losses, or have their ope...