Money and Finance
- Recent Sells
Well Wednesday brought about some changes to my portfolio. This is something I've been thinking about doing for a while with two of my positions. Both Caterpillar and Intel are great companies although they've fallen on hard times. Caterpillar...
- Recent Option Transaction
Well the markets have started to waffle a bit which is good for those of us looking to acquire stocks. Recently Caterpillar has sold off again to the low $80's thanks to concerns of slowing growth in China. The forecast was downgraded to a "meager"...
- Caterpillar Accelerates Dividend
As I was compiling some dividend history for my positions to try and get and weighted average growth rate over the past few years, I noticed that Caterpillar (CAT) was scheduled for 5 payments this year. Since other companies have gone the route of...
- Recent Buy
This morning I pulled the trigger and purchased 23 shares of Caterpillar (CAT) for $82.75 per share. Based on the recently announced quarterly payout of $0.52 per share my YOC for the position is 2.50%. The CAT shares will provide an extra $47.84...
- Caterpillar Stock Analysis
As mentioned in my previous post, I'm going to try and have 1 stock analysis report for some popular dividend growth stocks come out prior to their latest earnings release this week. Today we'll look at Caterpillar Inc. (CAT). Caterpillar was...
Money and Finance
Pressures at Home, Tensions Offshore – By Bill Bishop
China’s gross domestic product grew 7.8 percent in 2012, its slowest pace since 1999. The growth slowdown appears to have bottomed out, and for the fourth quarter of 2012 the economy grew at 7.9 percent, slightly ahead of expectations.
Many analysts questioned the health of the apparent recovery and the limited progress in rebalancing the economy away from investment toward consumption.
In spite of the improvement in the Chinese economy, the construction and mining sectors have remained relatively weak. Caterpillar‘s China operation has had some difficulties, and it now turns out that the company has had to deal with not only a weak economy but also what it says was outright fraud.
In 2011, Caterpillar announced the acquisition of ERA Mining Machinery for up to $886 million. On Friday afternoon, on the eve of a three-day weekend, Caterpillar issued a news release saying it had “uncovered deliberate, multiyear, coordinated accounting misconduct” in ERA’s operations.
Another month, another Chinese fraud, a cynic might quip. What makes this scam so remarkable is that a huge multinational with decades of experience in China was fooled, possibly because of a “distracted board of directors”, and that the principal shareholders of ERA – Emory Williams, a former president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Beijing, and James E. Thompson III, heir apparent to the Crown Shipping fortune – are prominent Western expatriates.
Caterpillar has not publicly accused Mr. Williams or Mr. Thompson of misconduct, but the release says “Caterpillar’s investigation of these matters is ongoing and any other comment at this time is not appropriate.”
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Related previous post: GMO White Paper: Feeding the Dragon: Why China's Credit System Looks Vulnerable - By Edward Chancellor and Mike Monnelly
- Recent Sells
Well Wednesday brought about some changes to my portfolio. This is something I've been thinking about doing for a while with two of my positions. Both Caterpillar and Intel are great companies although they've fallen on hard times. Caterpillar...
- Recent Option Transaction
Well the markets have started to waffle a bit which is good for those of us looking to acquire stocks. Recently Caterpillar has sold off again to the low $80's thanks to concerns of slowing growth in China. The forecast was downgraded to a "meager"...
- Caterpillar Accelerates Dividend
As I was compiling some dividend history for my positions to try and get and weighted average growth rate over the past few years, I noticed that Caterpillar (CAT) was scheduled for 5 payments this year. Since other companies have gone the route of...
- Recent Buy
This morning I pulled the trigger and purchased 23 shares of Caterpillar (CAT) for $82.75 per share. Based on the recently announced quarterly payout of $0.52 per share my YOC for the position is 2.50%. The CAT shares will provide an extra $47.84...
- Caterpillar Stock Analysis
As mentioned in my previous post, I'm going to try and have 1 stock analysis report for some popular dividend growth stocks come out prior to their latest earnings release this week. Today we'll look at Caterpillar Inc. (CAT). Caterpillar was...