Thursday, March 21, 2013

Why Caterpillar Will Come Crawling Back

Based on the aggregated intelligence of 180,000-plus investors participating in Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's free investing community, heavy equipment giant Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT  ) has earned a respected four-star ranking.

With that in mind, let's take a closer look at Caterpillar and see what CAPS investors are saying about the stock right now.

Caterpillar facts

Headquarters (founded)

Peoria, Ill. (1925)

Market Cap

$58.5 billion

Industry

Construction and farm machinery

Trailing-12-Month Revenue

$65.9 billion

Management

Chairman/CEO Douglas Oberhelman

CFO Bradley Halverson

Return on Equity (average, past 3 years)

34.6%

Cash / Debt

$3.3 billion / $40.2 billion

Dividend Yield

2.3%

Competitors

CNH Global

Deere

Terex

Sources: S&P Capital IQ and Motley Fool CAPS.

On CAPS, 94% of the 6,035 members who have rated Caterpillar believe the stock will outperform the S&P 500 going forward.

Earlier this month, one of those Fools, BriAsh, tapped the stock as a particularly solid bargain opportunity: "[Caterpillar] builds construction and heavy machinery that are competitive globally, and many can run on cheaper natural gas. Share values are down because of economic stagnation, and what appears to be a very [dumb] acquisition in China (perhaps a fraud victim), but [Caterpillar] will weather these temporary setbacks by continuing to supply the kind of equipment nations need to eventually rebuild deteriorating infrastructure."

In fact, Caterpillar is the market share leader in an industry in which size matters, and its quality products, extensive service network, and unparalleled brand strength combine to give it solid competitive advantages. Read all about Caterpillar's strengths and weaknesses in The Motley Fool's brand new report. Just click here to access it now.

Want to see how well (or not so well) the stocks in this series are performing? Follow the TrackPoisedTo CAPS account.

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