The global recovery is underway, and that's goods news for Cummins, Inc. (NYSE: CMI), which is why reiterating my Buy rating for the company's shares, first recommended on April 3, 2009 at a price of $29.70. If you bought CMI in April, you're up an impressive 57%.

Look for Cummins, with more than 50% of its revenue derived from international markets, to register an impressive FY2010 revenue gain, on sales gains of its efficient truck engine and infrastructure-based power generation equipment. Basically, institutional investors (IIs) have looked beyond CMI's FY2009 revenue decline, and have bid-up the company's shares since March, on the U.S./global economic recoveries.

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.

Earlier in the week, Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT), the famous maker of heavy equipment and engines for industry, reported earnings for the second quarter. This is exactly the kind of company that one worries about during a recession. Looking through the results, one can't help but cringe. There's nothing you can do about it.

Sales dropped over 40%, impacted in part by currency translations. Adjusted profit of 72 cents per diluted share represented a steep decline in profit growth. Caterpillar earned $1.74 per diluted share in the year-ago period.

Engine equipment maker Briggs & Stratton Corporation (NYSE: BGG) continues to struggle with the impact on earnings of a snow engine recall. Thus far in fiscal 2008, warranty expenses for the snow engine recall total more than $20 million in 1Q2008 and an additional $18 million in 2Q2008. Even though net sales increased by 13% to $479 million, the company is still running a half-year operating loss of $15 million due to the negative impact from warranty expenses. To cover the warranty expenses, Briggs & Stratton sold an investment in preferred stock, realizing $25 million in after-tax gains.

Briggs & Stratton 2Q earnings were also negatively affected by higher fixed-production costs but lower production output due to expenses incurred in closing one production facility and opening a new production facility for lawn and garden equipment. A bit of good news was that interest expense for the quarter was down due to lower average borrowing because of inventory reductions.

The company is forecasting FY2008 net income in the $60-$68 million range, with diluted EPS of $1.21-$1.37, if -- and it is a big if -- net sales grow at a rate of 7%-8%. Investors were prepared for the unpleasant earnings news. The stock closed recently at just over $17, with little drop in price as a result of the earnings downturn.

An excellent article appeared in Red Herring written by Alexandra Berzon. In her article, Alexandra describes a recent, albeit small, misstep by Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) whereby it began placing Google-leaning content tips at the head of search results. An outcry arose and our friends at Google quickly disengaged the "service."

This situation brings two things to the forefront of my thinking. First, why can't eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY) react in similar timely fashion to its membership outcries when it receives them? Secondly, what does Google's attempt here signal in the realm of content manipulation? Setting aside the eBay angle and the business aspects of Google's decisions, let's quickly address the impending danger of content manipulation.