GetCoattail Research — Caterpillar is the market's industrial route into the AI build-out: a record $72 billion order backlog on data-center power demand, second-quarter sales up 24%, and a stock that closed at $1,064.90 on June 30 — the high of our 252-session closing window — before falling about a quarter in the third quarter. Six of our 83 superinvestors hold it — 6,741,875 shares in total, 94.2% of them a single foundation trust that did not change its position — while the full 13F market added 15.5% more shares in the same quarter, and insiders recorded five open-market purchases in the entire parsed record against $274,642,794.45 of sales.
Start with the narrative: the operating print was the strongest in the company's recent history, and the stock has been falling anyway. Caterpillar reported second-quarter 2026 results on August 4: sales and revenues of $20.5 billion, up 24% year over year, adjusted earnings of $8.17 a share against $4.72 a year earlier, and an order backlog of $72 billion — a record, up $9 billion in the quarter — with power-generation equipment for data centers the demand engine most coverage names. The shares had closed at $1,064.90 on June 30, the high of our 252-session window, with a 52-week high of $1,073.46. The third quarter then took back about 24% in profit-taking; the stock closed down 5.75% at $813.83 on October 7, still up more than 40% for the year. Truist cut its target from $1,225 to $1,100 on October 5 while keeping a Buy rating, citing the durability of data-center spending; Zacks cut its rating from Strong Buy to Hold on October 7. Benzinga's October 8 radar of five stocks trending among retail traders named Caterpillar fifth. It was the highest-ranked stock we had not yet audited.
Now the filings. For Caterpillar — the thirty-second Filing Tape audit — the story is concentration without motion at the top, broadening everywhere else: the tracked register did not add a single share in the quarter the price rose 50.3%, the full market added more than forty million, and the insider register has pointed one way across its whole parsed span.
Lens 1: the superinvestors — six holders, one of them 94.2%, nobody added
We track 83 large, mostly long-only managers whose 13F portfolios we collect directly from SEC EDGAR. As of June 30, 2026, 6 held Caterpillar long — no option rows — totalling 6,741,875 shares worth $7,179,422,689. The direction count is three unchanged and three decreased: no new positions, and no manager increased. Not one member of the cohort added a share in the second quarter.
The register is one holder and a tail. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust holds 6,353,614 shares worth $6,765,963,549, a 19.65% portfolio weight, marked unchanged — and 94.2% of the tracked cohort's Caterpillar shares. Thomas Gayner's Markel Group is unchanged at 328,650 shares worth $349,979,385, a 2.67% weight. The three decreases are small: Dodge & Cox Funds trimmed 1.5% to 39,404 shares worth $41,961,320; Mairs & Power Funds trimmed 1.9% to 18,102 shares worth $19,276,820; Thomas Russo's Gardner Russo & Quinn cut 41.1% to 265 shares worth $282,199. Bill Nygren's Oakmark Funds are unchanged at 1,840 shares worth $1,959,416. A quarter earlier the pipeline's CUSIP file held 6,744,715 shares across seven rows; the seventh row — Steven Check's Check Capital Management, 1,717 shares — exited, and the cohort total moved from 6,744,715 to 6,741,875 shares, a change of −0.04%, in a quarter when the price rose 50.3%, from $708.46 to $1,064.90. The cohort's reported value implies $1,064.90 per share, matching the June 30 close exactly. Six names, one decision-maker's weight, and a flat line.
Lens 2: institutions — 4,058 filers, shares up 15.49%
Zoom out to the whole 13F market and the quarter looks entirely different. At June 30, 2026, 4,058 institutions reported positions, up from 3,708 at March 31 (+9.44%), and 4,042 reported long positions. Reported shares rose 15.49%, from 283,866,519 to 327,834,062 shares, with 2,253 filers entering and 1,903 exiting. Reported aggregate value rose 78.56% to $360,252,959,839; the aggregate includes option rows, so we headline filer and share counts and label dollars "reported" (see methodology). The implied value per share, $1,098.89, sits 3.2% above the June 30 close of $1,064.90. Set the two registers side by side and the contrast is the quarter: the broad market added 43,967,543 reported shares while the tracked cohort's total moved by −2,840 shares — broadening at market scale, stillness at the tracked scale, in the same three months.
Lens 3: the 5% register — three filings, one Vanguard reshuffle
Our full parse holds just three SC 13D/G filings for Caterpillar — one SC 13G original and two SC 13G/A amendments, two reporting persons, the most recent filed April 29, 2026, and no SC 13D originals at all. All three rows are one complex under two names. The Vanguard Group reported 46,835,122 shares (10.06%) as of February 27, 2026, then 0 shares (0.0%) as of March 13, 2026. A row under a different reporter name, Vanguard Capital Management, then reported 34,776,099 shares (7.47%) as of March 31, 2026 — the register's latest filing. We report rows as filed and never sum them: the aggregation's total across these rows would add different dates together and multiply-count a single complex's stake. A three-filing register is thin coverage for a company of this size, and we say so rather than dressing it up: in this lens, the record is a passive giant's name change, and nothing else has printed.
Lens 4: insiders — five purchases in the parsed record, $274,642,794.45 of sales
The parsed Form 4 record holds 187 filings through October 2, 2026. Across it, open-market purchases total five transactions — 1,125 shares, $578,535.50, two buyers — and none of the five is recorded as an officer purchase. Against that stand 98 sales totalling 391,460 shares and $274,642,794.45, by ten sellers, 97 of them recorded as officer sales. The last year holds the same shape at larger scale: two purchases — 550 shares, $389,868.00, one buyer — against 92 sales of 340,216 shares for $253,096,255.19 by nine sellers, every sale recorded as an officer sale. The last 90 days hold no purchases at all and 14 sales — 32,401 shares for $26,211,763.87 — every one an officer sale, all by a single seller, across 12 filings. Our site's insider aggregate (October 10, 2026) matches the full parse's 90-day figures exactly: zero purchases, 14 sales, $26,211,763.87, no last buy recorded. We assign no motives to any of it; the record's shape is the fact — across the entire span we parse, the personal register has bought five times and sold ninety-eight.
Lens 5: Congress — no record in either chamber
Across the congressional record we maintain (combined record as of October 3, 2026), Caterpillar has no record at all — no purchases, no sales, no member rows. The House aggregate (as of October 3, 2026) and the Senate aggregate (as of October 1, 2026) each carry no Caterpillar record. We report the absence rather than omitting the lens.
Lens 6: short interest — 1.82% of the share count, rebuilding off an August low
As of September 15, 2026 — the most recent FINRA settlement date — 8,377,107 Caterpillar shares were sold short, with days-to-cover of 3.70, up 10.89% from the prior settlement. The series peak is old: 15,391,935 shares on February 15, 2024, so the latest reading sits 45.6% below the peak. Year over year the borrow is up 20.7%, from 6,941,303 shares on September 15, 2025, and since the June 30 settlement (9,052,419 shares) it is down 7.5%. Against the 459,674,889 shares in our fundamentals file (as of June 30, 2026), the borrow is 1.82% of the reported share count — a small borrow for a stock this debated, and one that has lately been growing.
The recent settlements run 8,054,245 on July 15, then 6,854,115, 6,455,487, 7,554,705 and 8,377,107 — a midsummer fade to the August 14 low, then two consecutive builds while the share price was falling from its June high. The series began at 7,563,255 shares on January 15, 2021; its lowest reading, 4,463,191 shares, came at the next settlement, on January 29, 2021. At 1.82% of the share count the level is unremarkable; the two-settlement rebuild into a falling price is the only motion in this lens.
The gap, stated plainly
The registers describe a company whose operating story ran far ahead of its tracked ownership. The tracked superinvestors held 6,741,875 shares at June 30 — 94.2% of it one foundation trust, unchanged — having moved −0.04% in a quarter when the price rose 50.3% and the backlog hit a record. The full market moved the other way: filers up 9.44% to 4,058, reported shares up 15.49% to 327,834,062. The 5% register printed three filings, all one passive complex changing the name on its row. Insiders bought five times in the parsed record — $578,535.50 in total — against $274,642,794.45 of sales, including $26,211,763.87 in the last 90 days from a single officer seller. Congress registers nothing. And the borrow, at 8,377,107 shares and 1.82% of the share count, has rebuilt for two settlements off its August low. One plausible reading is that the registers are sorted by mandate: a foundation trust sized for permanence sat still, the broad index-and-benchmark market absorbed the quarter's supply, and the fastest money — the borrow — is the only register currently changing its mind. The record supports each clause separately; it does not say which register is right.
What would change the picture
Nothing above is a recommendation. It is a record. These are the filings that would change the description:
- 1. The 2026Q3 13Fs (filing window closing mid-November 2026). The tracked cohort held 6,741,875 shares at June 30, 94.2% of it the Gates Foundation Trust's unchanged 6,353,614. Whether that one row survived a quarter in which the price fell about a fifth — and whether any of the other five holders' three decreases became exits — is the whole lens.
- 2. An insider purchase that is not the sixth of its kind. The parsed record holds five purchases totalling $578,535.50 against 98 sales totalling $274,642,794.45, and zero purchases in the last 90 days. A purchase run of any breadth — more than one buyer, in size — would break a pattern that has held for the entire record we parse.
- 3. Whether the full market's +15.49% share growth holds. The broad register added 43,967,543 reported shares in the June quarter while the tracked cohort stood still. A second broadening quarter would separate the two registers further; a reversal would close the gap this audit is built on.
- 4. Whether the borrow keeps building. Short interest stood at 8,377,107 shares on September 15, up two settlements in a row from 6,455,487 on August 14, at 1.82% of the share count with days-to-cover of 3.70. A move back toward the June 30 settlement's 9,052,419, or a fade back to the August low, is the fastest-updating series in this audit.
- 5. A congressional first print. Both chambers' registers are blank for this name. Any member row — in either direction — would be this lens's first entry.
Until one of those prints, the record describes a stock held by six of our 83 tracked superinvestors — 6,741,875 shares, 94.2% of them one unchanged holder — whose full market broadened by 15.5% in a single quarter, whose insiders have sold $274,642,794.45 against five recorded purchases, whose congressional register is blank, and whose small borrow has just started rebuilding into a falling price.
Related reading: Three of 83: Every Superinvestor in Applied Digital Is New. Its Insiders Have Never Bought a Share. — Filing Tape #31; Four of 83: Trian Is 68.6% of the Superinvestors' Wendy's Stake. Short Interest Is 25.61% of the Share Count. — Filing Tape #30; Zero of 83: The Superinvestors Aren't in IREN — Filing Tape #1. Caterpillar's own page: Caterpillar Inc. (CAT) on GetCoattail.
Methodology and data notes
- Superinvestor lens: 83 managers collected directly from SEC EDGAR Form 13F (managers_13f collection), positions as of June 30, 2026; Caterpillar identified by CUSIP 149123101. Six distinct managers hold long positions totalling 6,741,875 shares; all six reported rows are long (no put or call rows); directions are three unchanged and three decreased, with no new and no increased rows. Quarter-to-quarter cohort totals (6,744,715 shares at March 31 across seven filing rows; 6,741,875 shares at June 30 across six filing rows; change −0.04%) are from the site pipeline's holdings files on the same CUSIP basis in both quarters, and the pipeline's second-quarter total matches the EDGAR collection's long total exactly (difference of 0 shares and $0), so no collection difference needs reporting for this name. The exited row (Steven Check - Check Capital Management, 1,717 shares, prior reported value $1,216,426) appears in the EDGAR collection's exit lists. The Gates Foundation Trust's share of the cohort is 94.2% = 6,353,614 / 6,741,875.
- Full-market lens: SEC Form 13F Data Sets full-market aggregation. The primary table is the full13f collection's by-ticker file (holders = distinct filers reporting the CUSIP; 4,042 of the 4,058 reported long positions), and its figures match the backfill fixtures' by-CUSIP row for 149123101 exactly on holders, shares, reported value, prior holders and prior reported value. Reported-value caution: the aggregate value ($360,252,959,839 over 327,834,062 shares) implies ≈$1,098.89 per share against a June 30, 2026 close of $1,064.90 in our price file, a gap of +3.2%. The aggregate sums the VALUE of every information-table row — including put and call option rows — while the share count covers long common-stock rows only, so we headline filer and share counts and label dollar values "reported."
- Insider lens: full-parse Form 4 aggregation (agg_by_ticker), record as of October 2, 2026 (187 filings). Sale and purchase counts are transaction-code counts (S and P) in non-derivative rows; grants and exercises are not counted as purchases, and one filing can contain many transaction rows. Purchase transactions total 5 across the parsed record (1,125 shares, $578,535.50, two buyers), none of them recorded as officer purchases. Sale transactions total 98 across the record (391,460 shares, $274,642,794.45, ten sellers), 97 of them recorded as officer sales. In the year through October 2, 2026: two purchases (550 shares, $389,868.00, one buyer) and 92 sales (340,216 shares, $253,096,255.19, nine sellers, all recorded as officer sales). In the 90 days through October 2, 2026: no purchases and 14 sales (32,401 shares, $26,211,763.87, one seller, all recorded as officer sales) across 12 filings. The site's insider aggregate (compiled as of October 10, 2026, 90-day window) matches those 90-day figures exactly (zero purchases; 14 sales; $26,211,763.87; no last buy). "Five purchases" in this audit is scoped to this parsed record, whose 187 filings are the coverage stated here.
- 13D/G lens: full-parse SC 13D/G aggregation and parsed filings (3 filings matching CUSIP 149123101 and issuer CIK 18230, two reporting persons in aggregate: 1 SC 13G original and 2 SC 13G/A amendments, no SC 13D filings), filings through April 29, 2026. The Vanguard Group's rows (46,835,122 shares at 10.06% as of February 27, 2026; 0 shares at 0.0% as of March 13, 2026, filed March 26, 2026) and the separate Vanguard Capital Management row (34,776,099 shares at 7.47% as of March 31, 2026, filed April 29, 2026 — a different reporter name, reported as filed and not merged with The Vanguard Group's rows) are reported as filed. No rows are summed, because the aggregation's totalSharesReported field (81,611,221 shares) adds different dates together and would multiply-count single positions. This lens's coverage is thin — three filings — and we state that rather than omitting it. No reason for any change is asserted — the filings themselves are the record.
- Congress lens: Senate PTR archive and House PTR archive as maintained on this site, combined record as of October 3, 2026 — no Caterpillar record: no purchase transactions, no sale transactions and no member rows in the combined aggregate. The House aggregate (as of October 3, 2026) and the Senate aggregate (as of October 1, 2026) each carry no Caterpillar record, and we report that absence in both chambers rather than omitting the lens. Congressional disclosures report value ranges, so where this lens has data for other names it records direction and counts only.
- Short interest lens: FINRA Equity Short Interest files (biweekly settlement dates), collected directly from FINRA's public distribution; the Caterpillar series covers 137 settlements from January 15, 2021 to September 15, 2026. The maximum of the full collected series is 15,391,935 shares on February 15, 2024 — inside the chart window — so the latest reading of 8,377,107 shares on September 15, 2026 sits 45.6% below the peak ((8,377,107 / 15,391,935) − 1) and 20.7% above the September 15, 2025 reading of 6,941,303; the change from the prior settlement (7,554,705 shares on August 31, 2026) is +10.89%, and the change since the June 30, 2026 settlement (9,052,419 shares) is −7.5%. The latest row's prior-settlement field (7,554,705) matches the prior settlement file's reported figure exactly. The series minimum is 4,463,191 shares on January 29, 2021, its second settlement; its first reading was 7,563,255 shares on January 15, 2021. FINRA publishes each settlement about two weeks after the fact. The share-count ratio uses the fundamentals file's share count of 459,674,889 shares outstanding as of June 30, 2026.
- Fundamentals note: our fundamentals collection carries Caterpillar's revenue of $67,589,000,000 labelled fiscal 2025, its net income of $2,700,000,000 labelled fiscal 2010, and its assets of $98,585,000,000 labelled fiscal 2025 — the file carries a different fiscal year for the net-income field, and we state each with the year the file assigns it rather than blending them into one fiscal year. The market value of about $396.90 billion uses that file's October 6, 2026 price ($863.44) and reported share count; our daily-close file ends October 2, 2026 at $845.42, and we keep the two files' figures separate rather than blending them.
- Prices: our own daily-close file for Caterpillar through October 2, 2026 ($845.42 close, +47.6% year to date on that file; 252-session closing high $1,064.90 on June 30, 2026; 252-session closing low $486.71 on October 7, 2025; closes of $708.46 at March 31, 2026 and $1,064.90 at June 30, 2026, a second-quarter change of +50.3%; change from June 30 to October 2 of −20.6% ((845.42 / 1,064.90) − 1)). The drawdown from the 252-session closing high is −20.6%, and the gain from the 252-session closing low is +73.7% ((845.42 / 486.71) − 1).
- Market context sources: second-quarter 2026 results (sales and revenues of $20.5 billion, up 24% year over year; adjusted earnings of $8.17 a share against $4.72 a year earlier; record order backlog of $72 billion, up $9 billion sequentially, with data-center power-generation demand the driver most coverage names) — the company's August 4, 2026 announcement as covered by Yahoo Finance earnings reporting and FX Leaders, checked October 10, 2026, summarised in our own words; third-quarter trading (close of $813.83 on October 7, 2026, down 5.75% on the day; shares up more than 40% year to date and about 24% below the June peak after third-quarter profit-taking; 52-week range $483.55 to $1,073.46) — FX Leaders and market coverage of the pullback, checked October 10, 2026; analyst moves (Truist cut its target from $1,225 to $1,100 on October 5, 2026 while keeping a Buy rating, citing the durability of power, data-center and AI spending; Zacks Research cut its rating from Strong Buy to Hold on October 7, 2026) — Markets Insider via ad-hoc-news and MarketBeat coverage, checked October 10, 2026; search and attention ranking (Caterpillar named fifth among five stocks trending among retail traders and investors in Benzinga's October 8, 2026 radar list, after Applied Digital, Webull, Super Micro Computer and Micron; AltIndex's Reddit top 20 and Insider Monkey's Google search-volume top 20 were each fully covered or skipped in this series through their last names, and Super Micro Computer, third on the Benzinga radar list, was skipped in this run for having no fundamentals record and only a thin full-market 13F row) — Benzinga, AltIndex and Insider Monkey, checked October 10, 2026. Figures we could not confirm against two sources were left out.
- Caterpillar is in the GetCoattail stock-page universe: Caterpillar Inc. (CAT) stock page. Series data: cat_lens_data.csv · cat_short_interest_series.csv. Earlier audits: Applied Digital Corp. · The Wendy's Company · IREN.
Past patterns are not a promise of future results. For education only — not investment advice.
This article describes public filings as of the dates stated. It is not investment advice and makes no recommendation. Filings lag reality: 13F positions are as of June 30, 2026, and later trading is not yet public.
Revision history
- v1.0 — October 10, 2026: first publication.