Yes, CAT debt seems high - in absolute terms (34Billion?) and in relative terms (compared to past years).
OTOH the company seems to be doing good things (so far) with that debt. ROA is up, as are margins (so far).
The stock already has moved up over the past few years. So I have to worry if it's not already too late to be a buyer. I'm confident that CAT will get a good share of the global construction/mining business. (I'm hoping that those cyclical businesses are not now seeing reduced demand.)
In the 1970-1980's I - like many or most others - was not so confident about CAT's prospects. With the ascendency of Japan, Inc. it was widely believed/reported then that Komatsu would decimate CAT, just as Japanese manufacturing techniques were enabling Japanese auto makers to pound Detroit. That has not happened: CAT dominates still.
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Always a puzzle to me how some stocks in a sector behave when the market and the stocks in a sector move up. Sometimes it's the market share leader that sees the max stock price gain, sometimes the most leveraged, sometimes the most downtrodden. I've been selling some TEX (an "inferior" company to CAT, imo) over $60. That's about a triple since mentioned here, and beats CAT's stock price rise. OTOH, I'm one who's totally missed the great rise in JLG, another in the sector (recently taken private).
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Fwiw, in the "construction" sector, I am also holding United Rentals,
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