Caterpillar Inc. CAT

The business

Caterpillar sells the yellow machine. Excavators and dozers to contractors through an independent dealer network that is the real asset, mining trucks the size of houses to copper and coal producers, and, increasingly, the engines and turbines that make electricity where the grid cannot.

That last part used to be the dull segment. Power and Energy is now the largest by revenue and among the fastest growing, because a data centre needs firm power on a timeline the utility cannot meet, and a Caterpillar generator is what gets installed while everyone waits. The dealer network still decides how much of any of this reaches the field, and dealer inventory is the number that tells you.