According to Zhitong Finance APP, the investment bank evercore has downgraded its rating on caterpillar (CAT.US) stocks to "underperform large cap," with a target price of $365. The bank believes that the decline in caterpillar's earnings and sales in the third quarter is a potential precursor to downside risks for earnings in fiscal 2025, as the company's management will ultimately face the issue of rising inventory in the construction equipment channel.

With David Raso leading, the evercore analyst stated that the weakness in emerging markets could pressure caterpillar following Trump's election as the new president, while with commodity prices relatively low, the capital expenditure response in the oil & gas industry may be unsatisfactory in the face of Trump's supportive policy for oil & gas extraction.

Additionally, given that caterpillar's stock price is close to 19 times the evercore predicted eps for fiscal 2025, analysts believe that the stock may struggle to keep up with parts of the industry in the medium to short term.

Meanwhile, evercore has also downgraded the stock rating of illinois tool works (ITW.US) to "underperform large cap," with a target price of $255. Analysts believe that the company is an excellent operator and profit expansion machine, but lacks organic sales growth, especially in international markets, which may cause its profit expansion in 2025 to be below average.

Evercore has also downgraded the stock rating of electrical utilities company eaton (ETN.US) from "outperform large cap" to "in line with large cap," with a target price of $389.