{"id":25962,"date":"2023-04-27T14:28:36","date_gmt":"2023-04-27T14:28:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/caterpillars-q1-profit-rises\/"},"modified":"2023-04-27T14:55:07","modified_gmt":"2023-04-27T14:55:07","slug":"caterpillars-shares-fall-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/caterpillars-shares-fall-on\/","title":{"rendered":"Caterpillar’s shares fall on fears demand may have peaked"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Bianca Flowers and Aishwarya Nair<\/p>\n

(Reuters) -Heavy machinery maker Caterpillar Inc topped Wall Street expectations with a 31% rise in profit on Thursday but a flat order backlog left analysts thinking demand may have peaked and the shares tumbled.<\/p>\n

Profit in the first quarter was lifted by a boost in U.S. infrastructure spending which kept order books full and the company was able to raise prices to soften the hit from higher costs. <\/p>\n

But the shares fell as much as 4.7% in early trading after the company noted an increase in dealer inventories. An unchanged order backlog compared to the previous quarters may be an indicator of a slowdown in equipment purchases, analysts said.<\/p>\n

“At a high level these are really strong results — the initial stock reaction reflects some degree of ‘is this the best and have we peaked out,” said Kristen Owen, executive director at Oppenheimer & Co Inc.<\/p>\n

Company executives attempted to reassure shareholders that dealer inventories are within the typical three to four month range and said they remain optimistic about sales in the coming quarters.<\/p>\n

“I think this is a little bit misunderstood by the market, we are not in a situation where we are expecting, or allowing dealer inventories to become a headwind,” CFO Andrew Bonfield told analysts on a conference call.<\/p>\n

The Biden administration’s infrastructure legislation has encouraged spending in the construction sector, spurring demand for the machinery maker’s excavators, bulldozers and trucks. <\/p>\n

Caterpillar’s construction division recorded a 10% rise in total sales. Its energy customers also placed more orders for parts and engines as drilling activities surged with higher oil and gas prices.<\/p>\n

The Texas-based company’s resources and mining division profit rose 112% while sales in the company’s energy and transportation segment saw a 24% increase year-on-year. <\/p>\n

The company reported adjusted profit of $4.91 per share, beating Refinitiv analysts consensus forecast of $3.78 per share. <\/p>\n

Caterpillar’s revenue for the quarter through March 31 rose by 17% to $15.9 billion from $13.6 billion a year ago.<\/p>\n

(Reporting by Aishwarya Nair in Bengaluru and Bianca Flowers in Chicago; Editing by Devika Syamnath, Kirsten Donovan and Elaine Hardcastle)<\/p>\n

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By Bianca Flowers and Aishwarya Nair (Reuters) -Heavy machinery maker Caterpillar Inc topped Wall Street expectations with a 31% rise in profit on Thursday but a flat order backlog left analysts thinking demand may have peaked and the shares tumbled. Profit in the first quarter was lifted by a boost in U.S. infrastructure spending which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":25963,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1213],"tags":[1223],"class_list":["post-25962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-business","tag-updated"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportBusinessNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3Q0FG-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25962"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25962\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26368,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25962\/revisions\/26368"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}