Caterpillar (CAT)

It's beaten its estimates by 15% in each of the last 3 quarters. Earnings and revenue were up 20%. Pays a 2% dividend that grows 6-7% yearly.

She's been looking at it. Global. Benefiting from US onshoring, buildout of semiconductor plants, and mining. Question of whether it's near peak earnings. Inventories seem pretty clean. She's waiting for stock to pull back more before deciding.

It reports Thursday. Wait till the conference call before pulling the trigger. Also, shares have been on a scorching run leading up to earnings and may need a breather.

The structural backdrop includes a lot of spending on construction and on US manufacturing facilities. Much better supply/demand for energy and materials than we've had in a decade. These are all customers of FTT.

If you look at the performance of CAT, FTT and TIH over the last year, all look very attractive. TIH does more construction, whereas FTT does more materials and so he'd lean more toward that one.

Reasonably priced. Decent earnings and growth, but not exceptional. Do peer group analysis. Often companies in a sector go up and down together, being driven by the same things. Ask if CAT has a tailwind, and is it the best in the industry? He wouldn't buy CAT, but does own URI.

Margins are improving drastically.

Tripped up a bit in execution and management. Prefers, and owns, URI. URI has been more successful in terms of growth of revenues, earnings, cashflow. 15% of a portfolio is too high, 2-4% is more normal. Trim and diversify.

It reports Monday. Orders for infrastructure and data centres have been huge. This stock is crushing the short-sellers. Is up nearly 100 points since its last quarter.

Yesterday, sold it because CAT moved up a lot in sympathy with United Rentals. They sharp rally changed the risk/reward.

Will benefit from governemtn infrastructure spending. Likes it.

A quality company, but their PE is misleading. Looks cheap, but is highly sensitive to cyclicality. Will buy it one day, not now.

Just bought it after they delivered a blow-out quarter last time (report next week) with top and bottom line beats. Good dividend growth. He believes in infrastructure long term. Bought this before earnings to start building a position.

Doesn't see a major recession, and so sees major upside here. They crushed their last quarter. He just bought it on a pullback, will buy again and hold for the long term.

They were viewed as a play on China. Given China's collapse, CAT stock should have tanked and shorters piled into this. But the CEO countered that CAT is more levered to data centres, which helped to sway the street. Still trades at 13x PE. Was up 11% in Q3. CAT has more room to run.

Prefers Caterpillar over John Deere.
Growth in infrastructure spending good for industrial nature of company.
Company subject to broad economic trends.
Good long term investment.