To those of you who said the healthcare bill isn't going to affect us

[Mike Lowrey]

Back to the original subject, I'll tell you if I was a Catepillar shareholder I can't say I'd be thanking the administration directly but I'd be thanking someone, their share price has risen 68% over the past year, where else would you get that kind of return on investment?

:facepalm:

Seriously?! Too bad it was because it was down so far from the year before. It's still down 20+ points from it's 2008 high. Not too good of a return, now is it.

[tony]

:facepalm:

Seriously?! Too bad it was because it was down so far from the year before. It's still down 20+ points from it's 2008 high. Not too good of a return, now is it.

Lets talk Investments then and the current subject. The thread was started based on the affect of the Obama administration and specifically the Healthcare Bill on Catepillar Inc. From January 21st 2009 alone to today the value of the company has almost doubled, anything before that is irrelevant to the subject. I know that when a stock tanks it can easily take a continued dive or it can recover, and for a company with a $620 Million market cap a recovery typically isn't going to be quick.

What I am saying is, is that yeah the stock was already in the shitter but that doesn't mean a recovery was guaranteed either, it could have easily stayed at $27.05 a share or gone even lower had the economy went toward a continual downturn, but it didn't. Also I could just pull any date out my ass and apply it here and say over 5 years there has been a 36% return or 220% over 10 years but those aren't relevant to right now. If Catepillar was facing bankruptcy a lot of you would be referencing the administration, because a $100 million dollar expense is apparently enough to warrant 5 pages of debate, where is that same sentiment when the economic climate has warranted a positive return?

[Bajjani]

Lets talk Investments then and the current subject. The thread was started based on the affect of the Obama administration and specifically the Healthcare Bill on Catepillar Inc. From January 21st 2009 alone to today the value of the company has almost doubled, anything before that is irrelevant to the subject. I know that when a stock tanks it can easily take a continued dive or it can recover, and for a company with a $620 Million market cap a recovery typically isn't going to be quick.

What I am saying is, is that yeah the stock was already in the shitter but that doesn't mean a recovery was guaranteed either, it could have easily stayed at $27.05 a share or gone even lower had the economy went toward a continual downturn, but it didn't. Also I could just pull any date out my ass and apply it here and say over 5 years there has been a 36% return or 220% over 10 years but those aren't relevant to right now. If Catepillar was facing bankruptcy a lot of you would be referencing the administration, because a $100 million dollar expense is apparently enough to warrant 5 pages of debate, where is that same sentiment when the economic climate has warranted a positive return?

We could talk stock all day long but it isn't always an accurate assessment of how a company is doing. Stocks can be over valued, undervalued, and they are a lot of times based of predictions of big investors, the expected quarterly earnings, things that haven't really happened but COULD happen. Also, yes the investment may have been great up until now and the economy was 'slowly turning around,' but if people have to tighten their belts more and have less money to spend, that WILL slow the economy.