CAT vs. DE, PCAR, CMI, WAB, TTC, AGCO, OSK, FSS, TEX, and TRN
Should you be buying Caterpillar stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Caterpillar include Deere & Company (DE), PACCAR (PCAR), Cummins (CMI), Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies (WAB), Toro (TTC), AGCO (AGCO), Oshkosh (OSK), Federal Signal (FSS), Terex (TEX), and Trinity Industries (TRN). These companies are all part of the "construction & farm machinery & heavy trucks" industry.
Deere & Company (NYSE:DE) and Caterpillar (NYSE:CAT) are both large-cap industrial products companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, media sentiment, risk, institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, community ranking, earnings, valuation and profitability.
Caterpillar has a net margin of 16.79% compared to Caterpillar's net margin of 16.15%. Deere & Company's return on equity of 58.61% beat Caterpillar's return on equity.
Caterpillar received 35 more outperform votes than Deere & Company when rated by MarketBeat users. However, 65.30% of users gave Deere & Company an outperform vote while only 62.49% of users gave Caterpillar an outperform vote.
In the previous week, Deere & Company and Deere & Company both had 20 articles in the media. Caterpillar's average media sentiment score of 0.64 beat Deere & Company's score of 0.44 indicating that Deere & Company is being referred to more favorably in the media.
Deere & Company presently has a consensus price target of $432.92, suggesting a potential upside of 15.52%. Caterpillar has a consensus price target of $323.35, suggesting a potential downside of 4.48%. Given Caterpillar's stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Deere & Company is more favorable than Caterpillar.
Caterpillar has higher revenue and earnings than Deere & Company. Deere & Company is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Caterpillar, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Deere & Company has a beta of 1.04, indicating that its stock price is 4% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Caterpillar has a beta of 1.19, indicating that its stock price is 19% more volatile than the S&P 500.
68.6% of Deere & Company shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 71.0% of Caterpillar shares are held by institutional investors. 0.3% of Deere & Company shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.3% of Caterpillar shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.
Deere & Company pays an annual dividend of $5.88 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.6%. Caterpillar pays an annual dividend of $5.20 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.5%. Deere & Company pays out 17.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Caterpillar pays out 23.5% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. Deere & Company has increased its dividend for 3 consecutive years and Caterpillar has increased its dividend for 29 consecutive years. Deere & Company is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.
Summary
Caterpillar beats Deere & Company on 12 of the 20 factors compared between the two stocks.
Get Caterpillar News Delivered to You Automatically
Sign up to receive the latest news and ratings for CAT and its competitors with MarketBeat's FREE daily newsletter.
This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding CAT and its top 5 competitors to their watchlist. Each company is represented with a line over a 90 day period.
Skip ChartThis chart shows the average media sentiment of NYSE and its competitors over the past 90 days as caculated by MarketBeat. The averaged score is equivalent to the following: Very Negative Sentiment <= -1.5, Negative Sentiment > -1.5 and <= -0.5, Neutral Sentiment > -0.5 and < 0.5, Positive Sentiment >= 0.5 and < 1.5, and Very Positive Sentiment >= 1.5.
Skip Chart
Caterpillar Competitors List
Related Companies and Tools