Can Caterpillar Ever Get Its Earnings Right?

The company gave its guidance for the 2015 full year. It expects earnings to be about $4.60 per share on $48 billion in revenues. The consensus estimates call for $4.60 in EPS on revenue of $47.79.

Caterpillar’s full-time employment totaled 108,922 at the end of the third quarter of 2015, compared with 114,352 at the end of the third quarter of 2014, a decrease of 5,430 full-time employees. The flexible workforce decreased by 2,658, for a total decrease in the global workforce of 8,088. The decrease was primarily the result of restructuring programs and lower production volumes.

Doug Oberhelman, Caterpillar’s chairman and CEO, commented on earnings:

The environment remains extremely challenging for most of the key industries we serve, with sales and revenues down 19 percent from the third quarter last year. Improving how we operate is our focus amidst the continued weakness in mining and oil and gas. We’re tackling costs, and our year-to-date decremental profit pull through has been better than our target. We’re also focusing on our global market position, and it continues to improve even in challenging end markets. Our product quality is in great shape, and our safety record is among the best of any industrial company today.

He added:

Our strong balance sheet is important in these difficult times. Our ME&T debt-to-capital ratio is near the middle of our target range at 37.4 percent; we have about $6 billion of cash, and our captive finance company is healthy and strong. We’ve repurchased close to $2 billion of stock in 2015 and more than $8 billion over the past three years. In addition, the dividend, which is a priority for our use of cash, has increased 83 percent since 2009.

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On the books, Caterpillar had cash and short-term investments totaling $6.05 billion, compared to 7.34 billion at the end of December 2014.

Shares of Caterpillar traded up 1.7% at $70.06 Thursday morning. It has a consensus analyst price target of $70.29 and a 52-week trading range of $62.99 to $107.12.