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<\/p>\nBased on monthly closes only, Caterpillar gained 85% from its April 2025 low through its December 2025 settlement.<\/p>\n
Caterpillar also extended its string of year-over-year gains to 7, dating back to a lower annual close at the end of December 2018.<\/p>\n
Through the first 6 weekly closes of 2026, Caterpillar had added another 28%.<\/p>\n
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As I mentioned last time, trade in commodities isn\u2019t for everyone, yet many long-term investors want to be able to take part in the meteoric rallies we\u2019ve seen in a number of sectors of the commodity complex over the last few years. Softs had their time in the spotlight as lumber, orange juice, coffee, and cocoa have taken turns climbing to new all-times, mostly due to weather with a little trade war trouble thrown in for good measure (lumber). We\u2019ve seen the Livestock sector sizzle as well with both live and feeder cattle reestablishing what high prices look like while lean hogs are poised to follow.<\/p>\n
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And then we have Metals making an extraordinary move the last few years with gold, silver, copper, and platinum all reaching record highs of late. And while there has been a bit of a hiccup of late, the sector is expected to continue to find buying interest as markets exhibit classic characteristics of both short-supply and demand-driven situations.<\/p>\n
Which brings us to Caterpillar (CAT). The company\u2019s stock soared during 2025, finishing the year at $572.87, up 85% from its April 2025 low monthly close of $309.27. The December 2025 settlement extend the company\u2019s string of annual gains to 7, since the lower yearly close at the conclusion of 2018. As for a low monthly settlement during that time span, we see March 2020 \u2013 the Covid month \u2013 with $116.04. From that low through the December 2025 settlement the stock is up 393%. But that isn\u2019t the whole story as CAT has added another 28% through the first week of February 2026.<\/p>\n
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As we look at the monthly close-only chart for CAT we see a similarity to the charts for metals, most notably Cash Indexes for Gold (GCY00) and Silver (SIY00). This is the connection: Given some investors don\u2019t want to deal with actual commodity markets, they will look at ETFs (as mentioned in my piece on Grains), stocks of mining companies, or stocks of companies tied to the mining industry. This is where Caterpillar fits end. According to research, the company has seen incredible demand for heavy equipping for mining, so much so it has reportedly created a backlog. Additionally, CAT\u2019s energy department has also seen increased demand for its diesel and natural gas generators providing back up power sources. As for the comment much of this stems from an \u201cuptick in infrastructure spending\u201d, we can see this on the long-term monthly copper chart (HGY00). (Recall Dr. Copper is an economic indicator market.)<\/p>\n
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How long will this trend last? It\u2019s impossible to say. For now, I\u2019ll leave it with my Market Rule #1: Don\u2019t get crossways with the trend, based on Newton\u2019s First Law of Motion applied to markets: A trending market will stay in that trend until acted upon by an outside force. That change could come from a number of directions, but to paraphrase former United States Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart\u2019s threshold test for obscenity, \u201cWe\u2019ll know it when we see it.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the date of publication, Darin Newsom did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. This article was originally\u00a0published on Barchart.com<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Based on monthly closes only, Caterpillar gained 85% from its April 2025 low through its December 2025 settlement.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278151,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[22014,156246,111,139,69,147,406],"class_list":{"0":"post-278150","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-caterpillar-inc","9":"tag-commodity-markets","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}