Can Caterpillar Stock Hit $820?
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Caterpillar (CAT) stock closed at $584.57 on November 10, down 26.8% from its October 9 close. Its steepest one-day fall, 9.3%, came on October 29, the day the company reported third-quarter results. You would need a 40% rise from the latest close to see $820, so the question is whether a drop the wider market barely shared ends the way Caterpillar’s past drops did. After those drops, the best price within a year was a median 46.6% above where each drop left the stock. A fall this fast makes buying tempting. How often did buying Caterpillar’s past drops pay off, and what did the wait cost?
Caterpillar Stock Was Higher A Year After Past Drops
Buying paid off after all six of Caterpillar’s earlier drops of this size that have a full year behind them. The stock traded higher a year later, posting a median gain of 41.5%. Since the start of 2010, the stock has fallen more than 20% within 30 trading days eight times. The other two declines, in August 2026 and now, remain too recent to judge. The six results ran from a 1.0% gain after the June 2012 drop to 114% after the March 2020 decline.
Buyers of those drops mostly sat through a small further fall. The stock’s lowest close in the year after a drop was a median 5.3% below where the decline left it, though it fell 19.5% lower after the August 2011 drop. The best price arrived a median 221 days after the drop, about seven months later.
| Time after a past dip | Past dips with that much time after them | Median CAT price change |
|---|---|---|
| 21 trading days | 7 | 9.0% |
| 63 trading days | 7 | 11.0% |
| 126 trading days | 6 | 38.0% |
| 252 trading days | 6 | 41.5% |
| Dip date | Fall to dip date (CAT / SPY) | 1 year later | Best in that year (days to it) | Worst in that year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-10-30 | -22.8% / -1.0% | – | – | – |
| 2026-08-07 | -20.2% / 5.0% | – | – | – |
| 2022-07-14 | -21.3% / -8.0% | 55.0% | 58.9% (197 days) | -3.7% |
| 2020-03-09 | -25.9% / -17.0% | 114.0% | 120.4% (352 days) | -11.7% |
| 2018-10-24 | -21.6% / -8.0% | 28.0% | 29.5% (176 days) | 0% |
| 2012-06-01 | -20.3% / -7.0% | 1.0% | 18.7% (245 days) | -6.9% |
| 2011-08-17 | -20.0% / -11.0% | 3.0% | 34.2% (190 days) | -19.5% |
| 2010-06-08 | -21.0% / -12.0% | 80.0% | 108.7% (325 days) | 0% |
| Median of 6 complete years | – | 41.5% | 46.6% (221 days) | -5.3% |
Caterpillar Is Still Growing, With Higher Costs
Caterpillar is still growing, though more slowly. Revenue for the third quarter of fiscal 2026 rose 17.3% from a year earlier, following 24.0% growth in the second quarter. Operating margin widened to 20.4%, from 17.3% a year earlier. Cash from operations over the last twelve months reached $14.2 billion, up from $11.5 billion a year before. Management said strong orders lifted the backlog to a record $78 billion. In Power and Energy, power generation sales to users grew 75%. Management put this growth down to demand for turbines and large reciprocating engines used in data center applications.
The stock now trades at 22.7 times its last twelve months of earnings, close to 22.3 for the S&P 500. Costs are rising, however. Management expects tariff costs of around $2.2 billion for 2026, excluding tariff recoveries, and pointed to higher freight and capacity spending in the third quarter. For the fourth quarter, management expects only moderate sales growth, as Caterpillar laps a strong quarter a year earlier.
How Is This Caterpillar Drop Different?
This drop came while the market held up. Among drops with a full year behind them, each of the six older drops came as an S&P 500 index fund also fell, by between 7% and 17% over the same days. Over the 30 trading days to the October 30 dip date, that fund fell just 1.0%. The August 2026 drop came while the fund rose 5.0%.
So a buyer at $584.57 is betting that a fall the market barely shared ends the way the market-wide falls did, and that sales keep growing as capacity costs rise. Caterpillar’s fourth-quarter sales growth, against the moderate growth management expects, is the number to watch when the company reports, expected in February 2027.
Does This Mean You Should Act On CAT?
Our purpose is to inform you with unique data so you make the right investment decisions. That said, betting on a single stock is always risky, no matter which direction you choose.
There is a smarter approach. Since its inception, the Trefis High Quality (HQ) Portfolio has returned 105%, beating the benchmark that combines the three major indices – the S&P 500, S&P Mid-cap, and Russell 2000. And it did so without taking the concentrated risk that comes with do-it-yourself stock picking. If that is how you want to invest, the HQ Portfolio is the place to start.
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