Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT) reported its financial results for the fiscal first quarter on Thursday that beat Wall Street estimates, despite the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic that continues to weigh on businesses globally.
1. Financial performance
Caterpillar reported £1.10 billion of net income in the first quarter that translates to £1.99 per share. In the comparable quarter of last year, its net income was capped at a lower £780 million, or £1.42 per share.
Are you looking for fast-news, hot-tips and market analysis?
Sign-up for the Invezz newsletter, today.
On an adjusted basis, the construction, energy and mining equipment manufacturer earned £2.06 per share in Q1. Caterpillar valued its sales in the recent quarter at £8.53 billion versus the year-ago figure of £7.60 billion.
According to FactSet, experts had forecast the company to post £7.82 billion of sales in the first quarter. Their estimate for adjusted per-share earnings stood at a lower £1.39. In the prior quarter (Q4), Caterpillar had recorded £1.52 of profit per share.
2. Other prominent figures in Caterpillar’s earnings report
Other notable figures in Caterpillar’s earnings report on Thursday include £3.91 billion of sales from construction industries – a 27% annualised growth. Total sales from resource industries in the first quarter printed at £1.59 billion or 6% higher than last year. At £3.23 billion, sales from energy and transportation were also 4% up in Q1.
3. Sylvia Jablonski’s comments on Caterpillar’s quarterly results
Defiance ETFs co-founder Sylvia Jablonski commented on Caterpillar’s earnings report on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Thursday and said:
“Caterpillar is a very strong beat actually on both EPS and on revenue. I think that they will continue to benefit further from infrastructure spending and the reopening and sort of getting back to business. The stock is up 27% this year, but I think it has good room to run in terms of where government spending is going.”
In its statement, Caterpillar said:
“The increase was due to higher sales volume driven by higher end-user demand and the impact from changes in dealer inventories. Dealers increased their inventories more during the first quarter of 2021 than during the first quarter of 2020.”
Impact on the share price
Caterpillar shares that you can learn to buy online here opened about 1% up in the stock market on Thursday but slid close to 4% in the next hour. The stock is now exchanging hands at £163 per share versus £130.61 per share at the start of the year. At the time of writing, Caterpillar is valued at £88.62 billion and has a price to earnings ratio of 42.61.
