Caterpillar climbs as China imports surge

Caterpillar Inc., the world's largest maker of bulldozers and excavators, climbed the most since October in New York trading after China said December imports rose to a record.

Locally, Cat has operations in Montgomery.

Caterpillar rose $3.55, or 5.9 percent, to $63.89 at 2:11 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading and earlier gained 6.4 percent, the biggest intraday percentage increase since Oct. 19. The stock had today's largest gain in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and Standard & Poor's Supercomposite Construction & Farm Machinery Index, which has 16 members.

China's imports climbed about 56 percent in December, the country's customs bureau said on its Web site yesterday. Exports increased about 18 percent in December from a year earlier, the first increase in 14 months.

Caterpillar is a net exporter to China and the country is one of the Peoria-based company's top export markets. Caterpillar's exports from the U.S. to the rest of the world totaled $16 billion in 2008, spokesman Jim Dugan said.