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Caterpillar (CAT) Advances While Market Declines: Some Information for Investors

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The most recent trading session ended with Caterpillar (CAT - Free Report) standing at $255.97, reflecting a +0.31% shift from the previouse trading day's closing. This change outpaced the S&P 500's 0.39% loss on the day. Meanwhile, the Dow experienced a drop of 0.19%, and the technology-dominated Nasdaq saw a decrease of 0.59%.

The construction equipment company's shares have seen an increase of 8.63% over the last month, surpassing the Industrial Products sector's gain of 4.21% and the S&P 500's gain of 5.08%.

The investment community will be closely monitoring the performance of Caterpillar in its forthcoming earnings report. The company is predicted to post an EPS of $4.76, indicating a 23.32% growth compared to the equivalent quarter last year. Simultaneously, our latest consensus estimate expects the revenue to be $17.26 billion, showing a 3.97% escalation compared to the year-ago quarter.

CAT's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $20.58 per share and revenue of $67.25 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of +48.7% and +13.16%, respectively.

Any recent changes to analyst estimates for Caterpillar should also be noted by investors. These revisions typically reflect the latest short-term business trends, which can change frequently. As a result, upbeat changes in estimates indicate analysts' favorable outlook on the company's business health and profitability.

Our research suggests that these changes in estimates have a direct relationship with upcoming stock price performance. We developed the Zacks Rank to capitalize on this phenomenon. Our system takes these estimate changes into account and delivers a clear, actionable rating model.

The Zacks Rank system, ranging from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), possesses a remarkable history of outdoing, externally audited, with #1 stocks returning an average annual gain of +25% since 1988. The Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 0.63% higher within the past month. Caterpillar is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

In terms of valuation, Caterpillar is presently being traded at a Forward P/E ratio of 12.4. This expresses a premium compared to the average Forward P/E of 9.42 of its industry.

We can additionally observe that CAT currently boasts a PEG ratio of 1.03. The PEG ratio is similar to the widely-used P/E ratio, but this metric also takes the company's expected earnings growth rate into account. CAT's industry had an average PEG ratio of 0.9 as of yesterday's close.

The Manufacturing - Construction and Mining industry is part of the Industrial Products sector. Currently, this industry holds a Zacks Industry Rank of 196, positioning it in the bottom 23% of all 250+ industries.

The Zacks Industry Rank is ordered from best to worst in terms of the average Zacks Rank of the individual companies within each of these sectors. Our research shows that the top 50% rated industries outperform the bottom half by a factor of 2 to 1.

Ensure to harness Zacks.com to stay updated with all these stock-shifting metrics, among others, in the next trading sessions.


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