Caterpillar, Inc. (CAT) is trading higher this afternoon. As I write this, shares are up over $3, or 4.6%. Not bad at all for a company like this one. Volume is quite convincing, too.

The heavy-equipment maker is very close to its 52-week high of $72.83, a level that was hit today. The one-year chart is encouraging to both investors and traders alike. The stock has pulled far away from the 52-week low, and judging by the current price action I'm seeing, it seems that the uptrend could certainly continue.

Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT) is doing great. The stock is hot, and even though the company is still reporting sales and earnings declines, you just know that the fundamentals will eventually get better. In the meantime, management is doing its best to beat earnings expectations.

Yesterday, management succeeded. For the third quarter, according to our Closing Bell post, Caterpillar said it made 64 cents per share. Analysts were expecting only 6 cents per share. Well, something was off there, huh? Anyway, according to the actual press release, sales decreased over 40%, and per-share profit was off by 15%, but really, it didn't matter to the market. Shares of the heavy equipment maker closed higher by 3%, on heavy volume.

Today was a weak day even before the leading economic indicators brought a disappointment. The dollar was strong ahead of the FOMC meeting decision this week, where the Fed is expected to give less free money but will likely hold rates firm. The good news is that despite a negative news bias from companies, the drops were not as hard as they could have been.

Here were today's unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 9,778.93 -41.27 (-0.42%)
S&P 500 1,064.71 -3.59 (-0.34%)
Nasdaq 2,138.04 +5.18 (0.24%)

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Deere (NYSE: DE) will be reporting numbers for the second quarter on Wednesday, May 20. Analysts aren't looking for expansion of the bottom line. Considering what Deere makes, it isn't surprising. We're still in a recession, and purchases of heavy equipment will obviously remain in an ambiguous state.

So, Wall Street is figuring on somewhere around $1.08 per share. That compares to $1.74 per share in the year-ago period. Last quarter, Deere didn't do so well, with its bottom line declining precipitously to 48 cents per share. Analysts had wanted to see 63 cents per share.