Caterpillar (CAT 2.13%) stock received an upgrade recently. A Tigress Financial analyst upgraded their price target to $345 from $295 while retaining a buy rating on the stock. While the new price target is pretty much where the stock is trading now, the price target upgrade and positive rating affirm the bullish case for the stock.
The bullish case for Caterpillar
Caterpillar is a cyclical stock that divides investors. The bears emphasize that management's guidance implies the company may have hit a cyclical peak because its 2024 guidance is for sales at a similar level to 2023.
On the other hand, the bulls, including the Tigress Financial analyst, stress the company's potential to benefit from end-market trends that have room to run. In other words, the company's revenue could surprise on the upside, and that usually means margin expansion.
The potential for an upside surprise comes from Caterpillar's exposure to commodity-related spending, which includes mining machinery and compression equipment. In particular, it has a role to play in energy transition, with its mining equipment used in mining copper, lithium, and nickel used in electric vehicles and the electrification-of-everything trend.
In addition, Caterpillar's construction machinery is a direct beneficiary of increased infrastructure spending, and its resource industries machinery is used in the aggregate industry -- itself related to infrastructure spending on roads, etc. It even has exposure to the boom in artificial intelligence (AI)-related expenditures on data centers via its power generation equipment.
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A stock to buy?
If you believe all of these trends mean there's a substantial opportunity for Caterpillar to outperform revenue expectations, then the stock is definitely a buy. However, I think the current valuation means you must accept these arguments to justify buying the stock. That might be a step too far for many investors.
