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Caterpillar (CAT) Outpaces Stock Market Gains: What You Should Know

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Caterpillar (CAT - Free Report) closed at $276.24 in the latest trading session, marking a +1.29% move from the prior day. This move outpaced the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.59%. At the same time, the Dow added 0.35%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 0.83%.

Coming into today, shares of the construction equipment company had lost 3.41% in the past month. In that same time, the Industrial Products sector lost 2.72%, while the S&P 500 lost 2.84%.

Caterpillar will be looking to display strength as it nears its next earnings release. On that day, Caterpillar is projected to report earnings of $4.64 per share, which would represent year-over-year growth of 17.47%. Our most recent consensus estimate is calling for quarterly revenue of $16.39 billion, up 9.3% from the year-ago period.

CAT's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $19.82 per share and revenue of $66.92 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of +43.21% and +12.62%, respectively.

Investors might also notice recent changes to analyst estimates for Caterpillar. These recent revisions tend to reflect the evolving nature of short-term business trends. As such, positive estimate revisions reflect analyst optimism about the company's business and profitability.

Our research shows that these estimate changes are directly correlated with near-term stock prices. To benefit from this, we have developed the Zacks Rank, a proprietary model which takes these estimate changes into account and provides an actionable rating system.

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. Over the past month, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 0.04% higher. Caterpillar is currently a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).

Valuation is also important, so investors should note that Caterpillar has a Forward P/E ratio of 13.76 right now. For comparison, its industry has an average Forward P/E of 10.03, which means Caterpillar is trading at a premium to the group.

Meanwhile, CAT's PEG ratio is currently 1.15. This popular metric is similar to the widely-known P/E ratio, with the difference being that the PEG ratio also takes into account the company's expected earnings growth rate. The Manufacturing - Construction and Mining industry currently had an average PEG ratio of 0.98 as of yesterday's close.

The Manufacturing - Construction and Mining industry is part of the Industrial Products sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 3, which puts it in the top 2% of all 250+ industries.

The Zacks Industry Rank gauges the strength of our individual industry groups by measuring the average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks within the groups. 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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