Industrials

Caterpillar Retail Sales Figures Overshadow Earnings Expectations

Jon C. Ogg

Published: January 27, 2016 12:05 pm

Last Updated: January 13, 2020 2:30 pm

Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT) is set to report earnings this week. With the problems the company has been facing, the biggest hope for the few remaining Caterpillar bulls is that the analysts and the company set expectations so low that they would simple to beat. That is unfortunately not really a great tell of the economic and mental picture there.

Caterpillar released its monthly sales figures, showing yet another drop, with demand from the ailing mining and minerals clients falling again in December.

Retail sales were down a sharp 38% from a year earlier. For some perspective, it looked bad earlier in 2015, but the drop was a mere 6% in the third quarter. This goes above and beyond what Caterpillar’s management can control. The pressure is coming from commodity prices and lower global demand from growth markets. It is almost as if mining outfits have all but ended new orders for more equipment.

The December rolling three-month retail sales showed a 22% drop for both the Power Generation and for the Industrial segments. Those two were actually the best, with all total sales being down 32%. Transportation was down by 58%, and Oil & Gas was down by 29%. Caterpillar saw down orders in every retail segment and geography in December and in October, with only the EMEA segment having a small gain in November.

Caterpillar is set to report earnings on Thursday morning. As of Tuesday’s close, the stock was down almost 12% since the end of 2015, down 16.5% over the trailing quarter and down a sharp 28% from a year earlier.

With shares now under $60, forget about worrying about 52-week lows around $57.50. Caterpillar shares haven’t seen lows like this going back to 2010. As another grim reminder, Caterpillar’s stock price traded in the low $30s and $20s from October of 2008 to July of 2009. This doesn’t feel like the next financial crisis, but at the end of the day it’s really hard to predict the future without having seen it yet.

Caterpillar’s fourth quarter of 2015 is expected to bring $0.70 in earnings per share on $11.45 billion in revenue. That would compare to $1.35 per share and $14.24 billion in revenue a year ago.

Caterpillar’s fiscal year 2015 is expected to have earnings per share of $4.59 on revenue of $47.34 billion. according to Thomson/First Call. Those figures compare to a year ago of $6.38 earnings per share and $55.18 billion in revenue. For fiscal year 2016, Caterpillar’s consensus estimates are $3.48 per share and $43.3 billion.

Caterpillar shares were down 1.3% at $58.38 on Wednesday. Its consensus analyst target price is $65.35 and its 52-week range is $56.36 to $89.62.