The world's incumbent carmakers aren't really anyone's idea of market-crushing investments these days. Despite some improvement in their share prices recently, the globally recognized companies that trade on U.S. exchanges have underperformed the S 500 index so far this year, at times considerably.

One of those laggards is the top Asian auto powerhouse, Toyota Motor (NYSE: TM). In numerous ways the storied Japanese company just can't catch a break lately, but it's cheap on certain valuations. Perhaps its stock is a contrarian buy at a time when Big Auto isn't particularly hot on the market.

Since it is very much a global manufacturer, Toyota is always subject to the whims of its regional and national markets. In the first six months of this year, that was a good news/bad news situation. Indisputably good was the company's retaining its title of No. 1 carmaker worldwide in terms of unit sales, with a cool 5.16 million vehicles exchanging hands in the period.

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Source Fool.com