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Caterpillar (CAT) Gains But Lags Market: What You Should Know

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Caterpillar (CAT - Free Report) closed the most recent trading day at $198.31, moving +1.46% from the previous trading session. This change lagged the S&P 500's 1.78% gain on the day. Elsewhere, the Dow gained 1.61%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq added 0.95%.

Heading into today, shares of the construction equipment company had lost 3.42% over the past month, outpacing the Industrial Products sector's loss of 5.6% and lagging the S&P 500's loss of 2.63% in that time.

Wall Street will be looking for positivity from Caterpillar as it approaches its next earnings report date. In that report, analysts expect Caterpillar to post earnings of $2.23 per share. This would mark year-over-year growth of 5.19%. Meanwhile, our latest consensus estimate is calling for revenue of $13.31 billion, up 18.43% from the prior-year quarter.

For the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $10.35 per share and revenue of $50.53 billion, which would represent changes of +57.77% and +21.03%, respectively, from the prior year.

Any recent changes to analyst estimates for Caterpillar should also be noted by investors. Recent revisions tend to reflect the latest near-term business trends. As a result, we can interpret positive estimate revisions as a good sign for the company's business outlook.

Our research shows that these estimate changes are directly correlated with near-term stock prices. 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.

Ranging from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), the Zacks Rank system has a proven, outside-audited track record of outperformance, with #1 stocks returning an average of +25% annually since 1988. The Zacks Consensus EPS estimate remained stagnant within the past month. Caterpillar is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

Investors should also note Caterpillar's current valuation metrics, including its Forward P/E ratio of 18.88. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 23.39, so we one might conclude that Caterpillar is trading at a discount comparatively.

Also, we should mention that CAT has a PEG ratio of 1.57. 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. The Manufacturing - Construction and Mining was holding an average PEG ratio of 0.78 at yesterday's closing price.

The Manufacturing - Construction and Mining industry is part of the Industrial Products sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 90, which puts it in the top 36% of all 250+ industries.

The Zacks Industry Rank includes is listed in order 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.

Be sure to follow all of these stock-moving metrics, and many more, on Zacks.com.


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