Caterpillar Inc. (CAT) recently announced the closure of joint venture with Navistar International Corp. (NAV). The 50/50 joint venture, NC2 Global LLC, was formed to pursue global commercial truck opportunities outside North America.   NC2 will develop, manufacture and distribute commercial trucks in markets outside of North America and India. The company said that the initial focus would be on Australia, Brazil, China, Russia, South Africa and Turkey. NC2’s product portfolio will include both aero nose and cab-over designs and will be sold under both the Caterpillar and International (Navistar) brands.   Both Navistar and Caterpillar have named three people to the joint venture’s Board of Directors and Caterpillar Group President Doug Oberhelman will serve as Chairman of the Board.   Under a separate agreement, both companies will together produce heavy-duty vocational trucks for the North American market. The company said that these trucks will be co-developed ...

Navistar International Corporation (NAV) has showed a net loss of $35 million, or 49 cents per share for the third quarter of fiscal 2009 ended Oct. 31, 2009. The results include increased provisions for income taxes and exclude the extraordinary gain from the asset acquisition of the recreational vehicle manufacturing business of Monaco Coach Corporation. This was worse than the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 66 cents per share. The truck maker had reported a net income $331 million or $4.47 per share in the comparable quarter of the previous year. Sales for the quarter slashed 37% to $2.51 billion, driven by poor sales at the Truck division. Manufacturing segment profit was $110 million, including the impacts of the Ford settlement (regarding the violation of an exclusive supply agreement), net of related charges, for the quarter compared with $473 million in the year-ago period. Segment Performance...

President Obama Urges Greener Vehicles

The accompanying table (click to enlarge) includes 38 companies which are equal-weight components in the ETF Innovators Global Personal Transportation Index, which includes companies with market caps of at least $150M. The index declined by over 51% in the past year compared to declines of about 37% for the S&P 500 SPDR (SPY), 36% for the Consumer Discretionary Sector SPDR (XLY), and 35% for the PowerShares Consumer Goods ETF (PRFG).

The companies are listed in descending order by market cap, with Toyota Motor (TM) recently eclipsing Volkswagen (VLKAY) for the largest market cap among the auto makers. Beyond the auto makers, the index also includes recreational vehicle makers such as Polaris (PII) + Winnebago …

Top 5 Auto Makers by Market Cap Top 5 Airlines by Market Cap The U.S. auto industry is poised to begin lobbying Congress for up to $50 billion in low interest loans to help them better compete in the global market by upgrading manufacturing facilities and paving the way for the production of vehicles with better fuel efficiency. Last year, Congress authorized $25 billion as part of an energy bill aimed at producing electric and hybrid vehicles, but auto makers are looking to expand the total to $50 billion over three years. Since companies such as Ford (F) and General Motors (GM) are below investment grade, company officials argue they cannot access capital at ...

I have no idea why Cummins Engine (CMI) is up 14% this AM to the $72s; I do see a news event involving Caterpillar (CAT), and Navistar but fail to see a direct connection - I could be missing the forest for the trees. Either way I am going to use this opportunity to cut back my position from a 1.6% stake to 0.6% (I actually bought some yesterday as it spiked downward to its 50 day moving average, but not enough of a stake to mention, so sort of lucked out on those shares)If anyone can decipher why that news is good for Cummins or if there is something else going on behind the scenes with this name, feel free to add a comment. We'll buy back on future pullbacks.[Apr 30: Cummins Engine Excellent Report on Strong International Sales]...