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u/Everyday-Joe-Invests
6 hours ago
Discussion
Is now the time to pounce on CAT?
Friday's closing price of 800.47 is more than 25% lower than its 52 week high of 1073.46.
While it sports a trailing P/E ratio of around 35%, it's forward P/E ratio of around 25% is much more in line with other players in the heavy machine space.
Fueled by booming demand by the massive AI Data Center build out, the push to bring manufacturing back onshore, and the need to upgrade America's aging infrastructure, CAT has recorded record profits and has seen their operating margins expand from 17.3% to nearly 21%. They've also seen their order backlog balloon to over $70 billion.
Bears say that all the good news is priced into the stock, and the downside risks have been ignored. They claim that the pushback on data center building could reduce demand for both heavy building equipment and CAT's industrial generators. Likewise, a softening of commodity prices here and around the world could drag down sales of CAT's large-scale mining equipment.
I've liked the CAT story for a while and have been waiting for a pullback. I think it might be time to pull the trigger.
What do you think?