Industrials

Weak Monthly Sales Trends Continue at Caterpillar

Investors who were hoping for an uptick in Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT) sales in the world’s growth markets are going to have to wait. The heavy machinery making giant released a rolling three-month report for August, and the weakness seen in the financial markets and in the economic reports was just too much escape from.

All in all, there was an 11% drop globally in the period ending in August. This effectively matches the report for the three-month rolling period ending in July. Europe, Africa and the Middle East saw cumulatively flat sales. North America was down 5%, and Asia and Latin America were both weak, with Asia/Pacific sales down 29% and Latin America down 33%.

When you break out the trends in the Energy & Transportation retail sales by segment, the trends were even worse than in the three-month period ending in July — a trend that was getting worse from June already. All in all, this was down 21%. Industrial sales held steady at -16% lower. The segments getting worse were as follows: Power Generation at -14%, Transportation at -38% and Oil & Gas at -20%.

Caterpillar shares were still up 0.9% at $72.55 shortly after the opening bell, but they backed off their intra-morning highs of $72.83 after this filing was released.

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24/7 Wall St. has included a copy of the two tables provided by Caterpillar in its 8-K filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

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