Can Caterpillar's Momentum Continue in 2026 and Beyond?

2026-03-01 10:50:00 ET

As the largest construction equipment manufacturer, Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT) is quite literally a purveyor of picks and shovels. Well, the costly kind. The company's large and extra-large excavators can cost between $500,000 and $1.2 million each.

Even at the low end, that's more than the median home price in the U.S. Yet even at those price points, Caterpillar has a receptive audience among data center builders, leveraging the industrial stock to the artificial intelligence (AI) trade. Those ties are a big reason why the stock is up 124% over the past year and is now the second-largest member of the price-weighted Dow Jones Industrial Average .

Caterpillar can extend its winning ways and it's not all about data centers. Image source: Getty Images.

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