Caterpillar Meets Earnings Expectations

Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT) has started off earnings Thursday as they have just announced quarterly earnings. The company matched analyst expectations but slashed its full year sales guidance.

The company also announced they will buy back $15 billion in common stock.

Caterpillar, the maker of heavy equipment announced second quarter (Q2) earnings of $1.27 per share. This was down from $1.69 from one year ago. Revenue also plummeted to $12.32 billion from $14.15 billion in the same time period. This matched the majority of analysts’ expectations as they were looking for $1.27 on $12.62 billion in revenue.

After the announcement shares of the company fell lower and continue to trade in the red at the time of this report.

The company also backed its full year adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $4.70 to $5. However they cut their sales outlook and revenue by $1 billion down to $49 billion. They cited a strong US Dollar, low oil prices and a second half full of headwinds. Caterpillar will also announced plans to purchase back $1.5 billion in stock in the third quarter (Q3). This is in addition to the already announced $1.5 billion buyback program and the $4.2 billion repurchase in 2014.

The equipment maker had already released results of their retails sales in June. A day ahead of the earnings release. Numbers were not pretty as sales were down 14 percent across all of their markets. The metric has come in above 10 percent for 2015, so far. That is encouraging.

So far, this calendar year, shares of Caterpillar are down almost 28 percent has the company is losing market cap.