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Caterpillar Inc. shares rose 3% premarket Thursday, after the company reported better-than-expected earnings for the fourth quarter and offered upbeat guidance for 2018. The agricultural and mining equipment maker said it had a loss of $1.299 billion, or $2.18 a share, in the fourth quarter, wider than the $1.171 billion loss, or $2.00 a share, posted in the year-earlier period. The number includes a $2.4 billion charge related to tax reform, equal to $3.91 a share. Excluding that charge, the company had EPS of $2.16, ahead of the FactSet consensus of $1.77. Sales rose to $12.9 billion from $9.6 billion, also ahead of the FactSet consensus of $11.8 billion. “After four challenging years, many key markets improved in 2017, and our global team delivered strong results,” Chief Executive Jim Umpleby said in a statement. The company is expecting growth in many end markets in 2018 and will implement a new strategy focused on profitable growth, he said. The company is expecting 2018 EPS of $7.75 to $8.75, or $8.25 to $9.25 on an adjusted basis. The FactSet consensus is for full-year EPS of $8.15. Shares have gained 72% in the last 12 months, while the S&P 500 has gained 23%.

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3M Co. [s:mmm] stock jumped more than 1% Thursday before the market opened as the manufacturer said it would increase its dividend, upped its guidance, and reported earnings that beat analyst expectations. The company had net income of $523 million in the fourth quarter, down from $1.16 billion a year ago, and per-share earnings of 85 cents, vs. $1.88 a year ago. Adjusted Q4 EPS was $2.10, beating the FactSet consensus of $2.03. Revenue in the fourth quarter came to $7.99 billion, up from $7.33 billion a year ago and edging the FactSet consensus of $7.84 billion. 3M said it now expected 2018 per-share earnings of $10.20-$10.70, up from the $9.60-$10.00 it previously forecast. 3M shares are up 40% over the past 12 months, a better showing than the 31% gain for the Dow Jones Industrial Average .

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Shares of Amazon.com Inc. are up 0.7% in premarket trading Thursday after an analyst at DA Davidson raised his price target on the stock to $1,800, a new high among Wall Street analysts tracking the stock, according to FactSet. The firm’s previous price target was $1,500. Analyst Tom Forte predicts that Amazon had a strong holiday quarter, growing revenue by 38.4%, to $60.5 billion. That’s above the FactSet consensus and at the high end of the company’s own forecast. Forte also sees an “iterative transformation” going on at Whole Foods, which Amazon acquired last year. He expects the company to seek out more ways to leverage this physical-store infrastructure to merge online and offline shopping. Amazon shares are up 62% over the past 12 months, while the S&P 500 is up 23%.

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Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV said Thursday its FCA US unit will offer profit sharing for hourly employees using tax savings from the tax reform bill signed into law in December. The company said the profit sharing is on top of a $2,000 special bonus payment for its U.S. workforce. The average profit sharing payment is $5,500 and will be made to about 40,000 eligible union employees on Feb. 16. The $2,000 bonus will be paid to about 60,000 hourly and salaried employees, excluding senior management. The company is also planning to expand its U.S. manufacturing at plants to grow its Jeep and Ram brands. U.S. listed shares were up 3% premarket, and have gained 120% in the last 12 months, while the S&P 500 has gained 23%.

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Sherwin-Williams Co. shares fell nearly 3% in Thursday premarket trading after the paint company reported fourth-quarter earnings that missed consensus. Net income totaled $867.4 million, or $9.39 per share, up from $203.0 million, or $2.15 for the same period last year. The company received a one-time benefit of $7.04 per share from deferred income tax liability reductions. Adjusted EPS was $2.95, below the FactSet consensus of $3.15. Sales totaled $3.98 billion, up from $2.78 billion and ahead of the $3.93 billion FactSet consensus. Sherwin-Williams acquired Valspar Corp. in 2017. Sherwin-Williams expects first-quarter sales to increase by mid-to-high single digits percentage year-over-year. Full-year sales are expected to grow in the mid-to-high single digit percentage range with EPS in the range of $15.35 to $15.85. The FactSet consensus is $18.36. Sherwin-Williams shares are up 51.5% for the past year while the S&P 500 index is up 23.5% for the period.

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The president of Michigan State University announced her resignation Wednesday amid criticism following the trial of disgraced doctor Larry Nassar, who worked for the university and was found guilty of molesting more than 160 girls and women. Nassar, who was also a doctor for the U.S. gymnastics team, was sentenced to up to 175 years in prison Wednesday. Many of his victims accused the university of mishandling their complaints about him. The university maintained it did not know about the allegations against Nassar until 2016. “To the survivors, I can never say enough that I am so sorry that a trusted, renowned physician was really such an evil, evil person who inflicted such harm under the guise of medical treatment,” Lou Anna Simon said in her resignation letter. Simon also suggested she was a scapegoat in the scandal. “As tragedies are politicized, blame is inevitable. As president, it is only natural that I am the focus of this anger,” she said.

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For the first time, President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he’d be open to a path to citizenship for so-called Dreamers, young undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children. “We’re going to morph into it. It’s going to happen at some point in the future,” Trump told reporters at the White House, saying it could be a 10- to 12-year process. “If they do a great job, I think it’s a nice thing to have the incentive of, after a period of years, being able to become a citizen,” Trump said, according to CNN. The comments could be a major turning point in hammering out an immigration bill in Congress, after Trump recently rejected a bipartisan plan that would have offered Dreamers a path to citizenship.

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Chipper Jones, Jim Thome, Vladimir Guerrero and Trevor Hoffman were elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame on Wednesday. Jones and Thome both made it in their first years of eligibility. Jones, the longtime third baseman for the Atlanta Braves, received the most votes, being included on 97.2% of ballots. Guerrero, the slugger best known for his years on the Montreal Expos and Los Angeles Angels, was second, on 92% of ballots. The four will be inducted into the hall in Cooperstown, N.Y., on July 29. Despite a grassroots campaign, Edgar Martinez fell just shy of induction, at 70%. Players need 75% to make the Hall. Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds, whose statistically great careers were tainted by steroid allegations, again fell well short of induction, at 57% and 56%, respectively.

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Discover Financial Services said late Wednesday it planned to raise its minimum hourly pay to $15.25 to all full-time U.S. employees as a result of the U.S. tax overhaul. The new rate would take effect later this year and affect more than 7,000 employees, the credit-card company said in a statement. Earlier this month, Discover announced $1,000 bonuses to more than 15,000 non-executive employees. Shares of Discover rose 0.3% in late trading Wednesday after ending the regular session up less than 0.1%.

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Xilinx Inc. shares rose in the extended session Wednesday to near 17-year highs after the chipmaker reported record revenue for the quarter, topping Wall Street estimates. Xilinx shares rallied 4.8% to $77 after hours. The company reported third-quarter net income of $11.9 million, or 5 cents a share, compared with $141.8 million, or 52 cents a share, in the year-ago period. Results included a charge of $183 million from the recently passed U.S. tax overhaul law. Revenue rose to $631.2 million from $585.7 million in the year-ago period. Analysts surveyed by FactSet had estimated 63 cents a share on revenue of $630 million. “We delivered our ninth consecutive quarter of revenue growth with December quarter revenues establishing a new record for Xilinx and we achieved our operating margin target of 30% one quarter ahead of schedule,” said Moshe Gavrielov, Xilinx president and chief executive, in a statement. For the fourth quarter, Xilinx estimates revenue of $635 million to $665 million, and a tax rate of 0% to 5%. Analysts expect revenue of $643.4 million.

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