For those surprised by today's abysmal CAT Q2 results, we can only assume this is because our post from yesterday “Forget Recession: According To Caterpillar There Is A Full-Blown Global Depression” slipped through the cracks.
Here is the punchline we showed yesterday (and over the past several years) explaining why the stock just hit 52 week lows.
This is how we summarized it: ‘after an increasingly shallower series of dead CAT bounces in the past year, first thanks to Latin America, and then the US, global retail sales just dropped by 14% – marching the biggest Y/Y decline since the financial crisis.“
Fast forward to today when we learn that in the second quarter sales dropped by, drumroll, 14% – the worst tumble in two years, driven almost entirely (but nott exclusively) by China and Latin America. Although every other part of the world was pretty bad too.
But as always the best insight comes from CAT's commentary of what is going on around the globe. Some excerpts from what is essentially a China bash fest:
Considering the world cup is about 12 months away, CAT may want to start booking some revenue there soon.