Toyota (TM) Slowing or Cutting Production Everywhere

Parts shortage from the earthquake and tsunami in Japan continues to hurt the auto sector, with Toyota (NYSE:TM) probably experiencing the worst of the damage, as parts shortages are resulting in its having to shut or cut back on production across the globe, with Europe and China being the latest added to the list.

On Tuesday Toyota said it will extend its production cuts at its factories in North America to the early part of June, suggesting shortages of models at Toyota dealerships.

In Europe there will be an eight-day halt in production for the same reasons.

The automaker added China will also experience a reduction in production from a lack of some parts. China factories will run at about 50 percent capacity through June 5.

Domestically, Toyota resumed car production at all of its plants in on Monday, but they will run at half capacity as well because of parts shortages.

Ford (NYSE:F), General Motors (NYSE:GM), Honda (NYSE:HMC) and Nissan have also said they're cutting back to one level or another at a number of their plants.

Toyota was trading at $77.09, up $0.97, or 1.27 percent, as of 2:21 PM EDT.

Semi's Shaky as (TXN) (INTC) (SNDK) (QCOM) (CY) Earnings Season Approaches

With growing uncertainty surrounding the semiconductor industry after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, Texas Instruments (TXN) will be the first to report first-quarter earnings Monday, with Intel Corp. (NASDAQ:INTC) posting its quarterly results on Tuesday, followed by other chip companies reporting next week like Qualcomm Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM), SanDisk Corp. (NASDAQ:SNDK) and Cypress Semiconductor Corp. (NASDAQ:CY).

It appears guidance will be paramount to investor response, as the supply and demand picture could weigh heavily on the sector going forward.

The earnings report should be decent for most chip suppliers, as pricing for NAND and DRAM chips have been finding some strength. but there's no doubt the wafer supply chain is broken, and a new challenge are the power supply issues.

Consequently the current quarter looks very weak, and investors will look there rather than at last quarter's results.

Aflac (AFL) Bracing for Japan Claims

Talking with FOX Business Network, Aflac (NYSE:AFL) CEO Dan Amos, after a visit to Japan, said the company expects what he said were“quite a few claims” as a result of the disastrous earthquake and tsunami.

Amos confirmed Aflac insures about “one out of four” Japanese people.

Even so, he believes the company will “still attain our earnings per share growth.” That's a bold statement that will take time to bear out, although insurance payouts will probably affect the company more over the long term as it will take time to sort through and deal with the millions of claims they're sure to face.

He concluded, “We are going to have quite a few claims. No something we did not reserve for. Who knows what the number. If you had 24,000 deaths, we insure one out of four, so that would be 6,000 deaths. We have 20 million policies in force, so as a percent its very small and we can handle that. We still expect to still attain our earnings per share growth. If something else goes wrong from a nuclear perspective that’s another story. But right now we will do fine.”

Aflac closed Thursday at $52.78, gaining $0.26, or 0.50 percent.