WSJ on CAT
By James B. Kelleher
CHICAGO (Reuters) - An odd thing happened on Monday when Caterpillar Inc (CAT.N), the world's largest maker of earth-moving equipment, posted disappointing profits and cut its full-year forecast, blaming weakness in the mining industry it bet on so heavily in recent years.
Its shares rallied.
When other big U.S. companies, including General Electric (GE.N), International Business Machines Corp (IBM.N) and Textron Inc (TXT.N), have warned of slowing profit growth in recent days, the news has unnerved investors and sent their stock prices lower.
So what was different about Caterpillar?
Part of the answer, analysts said, was that its announcement was not a surprise. The company has warned repeatedly in recent months that demand from mining customers was deteriorating.
Another factor was Caterpillar's upbeat assessment of the outlook for the construction industry, especially in the United States and China.And a share buyback always helps - this one to the tune of $1 billion in stock this year and as much as $3.8 billion by the end of 2015.
But analysts said the overly bleak assessment Caterpillar provided on Monday for its sales to the global mining industry also, ironically, helped the shares. In a nutshell, no one believes it's really going to be quite as bad as it says, even given the recent slide in gold and copper prices on concerns about weak global growth.<snip>
