Caterpillar Beats Fourth-quarter Earnings, Cuts Outlook

Shares of Caterpillar Inc. were up less than 1% in premarket trade Thursday after the company beat fourth-quarter earnings expectations. The company reported a net loss of $1.35 billion, or a loss of $2 per share, wider than a loss of $247 million, or a loss of 16 cents per share in the year-earlier period. It reported adjusted profit of 83 cents, above the FactSet consensus of 63 cents. Caterpillar reported sales of $9.57 billion, below $11.03 billion in the year-earlier period and below the FactSet consensus of $9.94 billion. The company attributed the quarter's loss to three non-cash charges and higher than expected restructuring costs. The company said it sees "modest recovery"in a few of its businesses going forward and cut its 2017 sales outlook to $36 billion to $39 billion. It sees a 2017 EPS of $2.30 and adjusted EPS of $2.90 at the midpoint of the range. Shares of Caterpillar have fallen 16.7% in the last three months, compared to the S&P 500's gain of 7.4%.