Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT) is showing that the slowdown is continuing rather than abating. The company reported disappointing quarterly sales figures in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing for the trailing three-months ending in January, but what makes this report is that the declines are back-end loaded. The report is based on supplemental information concerning deliveries to users for retail sales of machines and sales of power systems to retail users and original equipment manufacturers.

November sales were up in key markets, with declines in December and wider drops in January. The company did note:

Due to time delays between Caterpillar’s sales to dealers and dealers’ deliveries to end users, Caterpillar believes this information may help readers better understand Caterpillar’s business and the industries it serves.

Caterpillar shares are down 1.4% at $94.22, against a 52-week range of $78.25 to $116.95. As a reminder, Caterpillar is a Dow Jones Industrial Average component, so it is acting as a drag on the DJIA.

We did not include the power systems retail statistics because those were not broken down by region, but the January sales were down 9% in electrical power, down 24% in industrial, down 7% in transportation and flat in petroleum. In all retail power systems sales combined, the reading came to being down 7% in January.

Here are the dealer statistic figures from January, December and November, by region. EAME refers to Europe, Africa and Middle East; and ROW signifies the rest of the world, everything except North America. The drops in North America and Asia are of real concern.

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