Best Value Companies To Buy Right Now

Best Value Companies To Buy Right Now: Caterpillar Inc.(CAT)

Caterpillar Inc. manufactures and sells construction and mining equipment, diesel and natural gas engines, industrial gas turbines, and diesel-electric locomotives worldwide. It operates through three lines of businesses: Machinery, Engines, and Financial Products. The Machinery business offers construction, mining, and forestry machinery, including track and wheel tractors, track and wheel loaders, pipelayers, motor graders, wheel tractor-scrapers, track and wheel excavators, backhoe loaders, log skidders, log loaders, off-highway trucks, articulated trucks, paving products, skid steer loaders, underground mining equipment, tunnel boring equipment, and related parts. It also manufactures diesel-electric locomotives; and manufactures and services rail-related products and logistics services for other companies. The Engines business provides diesel, heavy fuel, and natural gas reciprocating engines for Caterpillar machinery, electric power generation systems, marine, petrol eum, construction, industrial, agricultural, and other applications. It offers industrial turbines and turbine-related services for oil and gas, and power generation applications. This business also remanufactures Caterpillar engines, machines, and engine components; and offers remanufacturing services for other companies. The Financial Products business provides retail and wholesale financing alternatives for Caterpillar machinery and engines, solar gas turbines, and other equipment and marine vessels, as well as offers loans and various forms of insurance to customers and dealers. It also offers financing for vehicles, power generation facilities, and marine vessels. The company markets its products directly, as well as through its distribution centers, dealers, and distributors. It was formerly known as Caterpillar Tractor Co. and changed its name to Caterpillar Inc. in 1986. Caterpillar Inc. was founded in 1925 and is headquartered in Peoria, Illinois.

! Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Matt Thalman]

  Dow losers
  Shares of Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT  ) are down 1.8% following the announcement that the company's union members in South Milwaukee rejected a deal that would freeze wages for six years but provide job security. The proposed plan was to cap the number of layoff weeks to 14 per year and reduce or eliminate indefinite layoffs caused by declining sales in mining equipment. The rejection is not something shareholders want to see, because the plan would have allowed Caterpillar to better control costs over the six-year contract period.

• [By Ben Levisohn]

  On a day when almost nobody was trading, the major benchmarks eked out record highs anyway, behind gains in E.I. Du Pont De Nemours (DD), Caterpillar (CAT) and Walt Disney (DIS).

• [By Ben Levisohn]

  Why the massive rally? Chalk it up to solid earnings from some bellwether companies. Caterpillar (CAT), for instance, gained 4.6% this week after reporting surprisingly good results, while 3M (MMM) rose 8.1% following its own beat, and Microsoft (MSFT) advanced 5.7% this week after beating earnings and reporting that it was finally making a profit on its Surface tablet. Apple (AAPL), the biggest company in the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite, rose 7.7% after the tech giant beat the Street’s earnings and revenue forecasts, and offered above-consensus guidance.

• [By Dan Caplinger]

  But sales trends remain abysmal in many parts of the market, especially in the former growth hot-spot of the Asia-Pacific region. Rival Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT  ) has seen sales in the region swing from year-over-year gains as recently as November to declines of 20% or more in each of the past three months. Latin America has been a bright spot for Caterpillar, but otherwise, the rest of the world has seen a substantial slowdown, with overall sales down 13% in April.

source from Top Stocks To Buy For 2015:http://www.topstocksforum.com/best-value-companies-to-buy-right-now-2.html