Also today, massive earnings seen from big CAT. Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT) It recorded a quarterly profit that got four times from a year ago. The biggest maker of construction and mining equipment of the world earned one dollar and forty seven cents a share in the final quarter of last year.

That’s twenty cents more than estimates. Revenues rose by one billion dollars more than expected, up sixty two percent to almost thirteen billion dollars. Looking ahead, the company expects annual revenues to top fifty billion dollars in this year, bringing Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT) back to pre-recession levels. So when I discussed with Doug Oberhelman, the CEO today, I asked him where all that growth is going to come from.

The chairperson and Ceo of Caterpillar, Doug Oberhelman, stated that they are seeing growth in revenue and sales just about across the globe. And almost all the industries except turbine business and large reciprocating engines which they think are coming but the growth will be coming later. So geographically and industry and product wise, it’s kind of a nice ramp all across the spectrum in 2011.

Gharib asked Oberhelman about the recovery of caterpillar equipment in the US and he answered that the U. S. certainly has been sluggish coming out of the recession.

There isn’t any doubt that they are one of the last economies to the party. It is coming, however. And they have just been with groups of dealers and customers the last couple of weeks.

Both customers and dealers are a lot more optimistic today than they were a year ago. Now these are not very big increases, of course from very depressed levels in the last couple of years, but the order level, the anecdotes, the activity is definitely improving. The firm saw in its December retail activity a big increase in the United States and North America. So it`s there in a slow and very slow manner.