Recall, that first overnight the company reported retail sales numbers that showed an unexpected reversal in growth across all geographic regions, with the all important Asia/Pacific region sliding from up 51% in January to just 31% in March.
But it was the ominous guidance that the company gave on the 11am conference call, that slammed the stocks, after management said that Q1 was Caterpillar’s “high water mark” for the year, and also warned that it expects resource industries margins to drop from first quarter.
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David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal.
He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.
