Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT) has enjoyed an amazing 2014, despite indications early in the year that things may be a dud. With a year-to-date gain of roughly 20%, Caterpillar has been the fourth best-performing Dow Jones Industrial Average component this year. Now a new downgrade from the team at Bank of America Merrill Lynch has said enough is enough.
Merrill Lynch’s Ross Gilardi and Michael Feniger downgraded Caterpillar to Neutral from Buy under the auspices that now the valuation to support Caterpillar’s gains needs to have growth behind it. The team noted that a stronger U.S. dollar, easing European Central Bank monetary policy, negative import growth in China and a recessionary Brazil all reflect a lack of growth outside of the United States.
The big news here is that Merrill Lynch’s positive thesis from late 2013 has played out. That thesis has also played out with close to 30% stock gains. Another issue is that Merrill Lynch is trimming 2015 earnings estimates by about 3%.
The other issue to consider is that Merrill Lynch feels that the early 2015 outlook could fall short of expectations when it gives its third-quarter earnings report. Gilardi and Feniger’s thesis said:
As the global leader, Caterpillar is a global powerhouse in mining, construction, and power systems equipment. Caterpillar is no longer out of favor with investors as the market is confident that Caterpillar’s earnings bottom is behind us. Caterpillar is very well positioned for the long-term, but growth may be slower than expected over the next 12 to 18 months. While we see mining equipment demand bottoming, we see some challenges in the near to medium term for Caterpillar’s non-US construction businesses.
What is interesting here is that the Merrill Lynch price objective is $121, versus the $107.40 closing price. Caterpillar’s 52-week trading range is $81.87 to $111.46, and the consensus price target is roughly $113.25, with the highest analyst target on the stock being $125.
Caterpillar shares were down 1.5% at $105.76 shortly after Wednesday’s open, based on the analyst downgrade.
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