Topic: How To Invest

Hello: What is your opinion of Cummins from an investment perspective? Thank you.

Article Excerpt

Cummins Inc., $123.70, symbol CMI on New York (Shares outstanding: 187.4 million; Market cap: $23.8 billion; www.cummins.com), designs, makes, distributes and services diesel engines for trucks, buses and cars. It also produces engine parts and power-generation systems. Cummins serves customers in 190 countries through 6,500 dealers and 6,000 company-owned and independent distributors. It gets about 53% of its sales from outside the U.S. In the three months ended September 30, 2013, Cummins’s revenue rose 3.6%, to $4.27 billion from $4.12 billion a year earlier. Earnings per share gained 2.1%, to $1.91 from $1.87. Cummins holds cash of $2.7 billion, or $14.41 a share. Its $1.7 billion of long-term debt is a low 7.1% of its $23.8-billion market cap. The company’s near-term outlook is mixed: demand from mining and power generation customers has weakened, and sales to India have dropped because of that country’s currency crisis and slowing economy. Cummins’s longer-term outlook is tied to a continued global economic recovery. However,…