Caterpillar: Q3 sales up 17% to $20.7bn, adjusted profit per share $7.20

Caterpillar's sales and revenues rose 17% to $20.68bn in the third quarter of 2026, from $17.64bn a year earlier, the company reported on 29 October 2026. It put $2.2bn of the gain down to higher sales volume, mostly equipment sold to end users, and $663m to better price realization. Operating profit climbed 38% to $4.21bn and the operating margin widened to 20.4% from 17.3%. GAAP profit per share was $7.13, against $4.88 a year earlier. Adjusted profit per share, a non-GAAP measure that strips out restructuring costs, was $7.20, against $4.95, and the adjusted operating margin reached 20.6%, against 17.5%.

Power & Energy sales rose 18% to $8.78bn and its segment profit 31% to $2.14bn, lifting the segment margin to 24.4% from 21.9%. Within it, Power Generation sales rose 30% to $3.42bn, from $2.63bn, mainly on turbines, turbine services and large reciprocating engines, primarily for data centres, the company said. Construction Industries grew sales 18% to $7.98bn and profit 33% to $1.83bn. Resource Industries sales rose 15% to $4.62bn, while profit gained 14% to $622m: the company said $208m of unfavourable manufacturing costs partly offset gains of $181m from volume and $96m from price. Operating profit for the group included $128m of IEEPA tariff recoveries, and the effective tax rate fell to 22.9% from 26.7%.

Caterpillar deployed $2.0bn of cash on share repurchases and dividends in the quarter, according to the release, which splits the rounded total into $1.2bn of buybacks and $0.7bn of dividends. Enterprise operating cash flow was $4.4bn and the company ended September with $7.9bn of enterprise cash. Chairman and CEO Joe Creed said the results showed "strong order rates and a record backlog", according to the results release, which does not give a backlog figure. The release also contains no numeric outlook for 2026.

Caterpillar's analyst slides say it is maintaining its full-year outlook, with 2026 sales and revenues expected to grow by a mid-to-high teens percentage, and they put the order backlog at a record $78.1bn, up $6.0bn from the second quarter. Reuters, in a report carried by Investing.com, said the shares fell pre-market after the results, that analysts expect growth of roughly 18%, and that the backlog rose more slowly than earlier in the year. Reuters set adjusted profit per share of $7.20, a non-GAAP figure, against the $7.08 analysts expected.

Caterpillar shares were at $647.80 in pre-market trading at 07:54 ET (12:54 CET) on 29 October 2026, down 9.19% from the 28 October close of $713.38, according to Nasdaq. Pre-market prices can change before the regular session opens at 09:30 ET (14:30 CET) on 29 October.