@shifty I think some of the stock price being propped up is the hedge fund managers. I really do. When they dont get a dividend price increase or the dividend is cut, look out below. Many of them bought at lower price so they are sitting on a profit for now. Funds like teacher pensions and the conservative institutional money managers bailed out a long, long time ago if they were ever really in it since the China fiasco.

Caterpillar Inc's Dividend Payout by Quarterwww.google.com/#q=pa yout+ratio+caterpill arCaterpillar Inc's Dividend Payout by Quarter
CAT's Dividend Payout Ratio (Jun 30 2016) II. Quarter
Earnings per Share $ 0.93 $ 0.46
Dividend $ 1.54 $ 0.76
Payout Ratio 165.59 %

@Crispus Houston is a location that apparently been mentioned recently. However, it seems to be much more of Houston seeking CAT than the other way around. Houston has lost lots of jobs from the drop in oil prices and just may be seeking to replenish those jobs. For CAT it would be close to Mexico but so is Tucson.

@billybob :~87% of revenue went to dividends last quarter. How anyone thinks this is sustainable is beyond me. From what I hear, employees are sick of being told they are important, when it's pretty clear shareholders are the only priority.
@billybob :I believe Houston was one of the possibilities for the mining product move. Tucson won. This is also an issue, as employees don't seem to be jumping at the chance of moving to the hellhole desert of Tucson. That includes South Milwaukee employees, who have plenty of other local career options and will probably not go. It also includes Decatur employees who, unfortunately, have no other choice than to move, as there are basically no other employment options in the area.

@shifty :Tucson = Peoria in the desert.

@skutfarcus :The relocation packages are ... not what they used to be. After seeing the vocational truck folks get burned, (relocated and then laid off) people are nervous. No one wants to get saddled with an unsold house moving from a low cost of living location to a higher cost of living location and uncertainty of continued employment..

@skutfarcus I agree but the winters are better. The fact remains you would be in Tucson the other months pf the year---lol

Sandstorms....

@shifty :Actually, the mining equipment business was only several months into its boom when the deal was made public in November 2010. Final approval in July 2011 cleared the way. Not until late 2011 did prices for mined metals begin to level off, one year after the acquisition was announced. Caterpillar saw an opportunity to expand its line of mining equipment. At the time, just about everybody thought this was a good deal.Oberhelman took the blame for that, and the board kept him on. A strange deal since Cat had just exited the on-highway truck engine business. But there is risk in new ventures, and this one proved a failed one. It happens. Cat's biggest mistake was thinking record demand for its products in 2011-2012 was "normal," and significantly increased capacity to avoid losing orders, as it feared happened in the boom prior to the 2008 financial crisis. There is only so much demand for goods and services in a specific period of time. Government stimulus accelerates it, but doesn't increase it, thus economies experience a "sugar high" then a "sugar low." The strengthening US Dollar doesn't help matters either. Good or bad, Oberhelman will remain CEO until his mandatory retirement in 2018.

@bn13814 :Yeah, a "cyclical" business that just happens to be in the worst downturn in it's history, just a few years after the last worst downturn in it's history.You got more excuses than the company:
@bn13814 :
I agree the board is also asleep at the wheel.
@bn13814 :

@bn13814 :Which is it, a new venture or one in which they have experience failing?
@bn13814 :This is a pretty significant failure in the leadership of a Fortune 50 company. There was plenty of evidence to show that level of revenue was above average, much less sustainable. You might be right that Doug will stay until 2018, but it'll only be because they do not have a better replacement, sadly.

One thing the board is really missing is someone who worked their way up from the shop floor. The CAT board used to have those and now they do not.

My husband and I have been through 2 layoffs. Layoffs suck. I really feel for the families out there going through it. I wish no one had to go through it. Ever. In any industry. But that's a pipe dream.

Some of you gentlemen need to see the forest, in spite of the trees. CAT is a global company. And if any you have looked at the "world" economy right now, you'd know that it is pretty dismal. China, a huge CAT customer, is having it's worst economic year in decades. Global oil prices are at unbelievable lows, which hurts CAT customers from the Middle East & Russia. Europe's economy is on life support, barely keeping it's head above a recession.And all of these factors have lead to a strong US dollar, which makes CAT's products more expensive and out of reach of many of their global customers.Until the global economy gets stronger, it doesn't matter who is in charge at CAT, there are going to be lean times for the economy.

More today. Some longtime, higher ups I hear.

@joepyeweed Very true. It used to seem most office employees started in a factory and worked their way into office jobs... But most of those (former factory) employees have retired, and office jobs are usually filled by college grads.