J.P.Morgan lifts Caterpillar's PT on strong demand

** J.P.Morgan lifts heavy machinery maker Caterpillar's CAT PT to $650 from $505, a 28.8% upside to stock's last close

** "From our perspective, the most important metric to watch in the Q3 print is the backlog, given the intra-quarter Joule and Hunt data center agreement announcements," brokerage says

** Says majority of the orders from the Joule/Wheeler announcement should be incremental to the Q3 backlog, while the Hunt project is ~5 years long and should come in phases

** Brokerage says it expects revenue growth to accelerate progressively in 2026 and 2027 as construction demand and pricing improve and capacity is added in power generation

** Says it estimates Q3 EPS of $4.53 vs the Street’s $4.54, according to data compiled by LSEG

** 14 of 28 brokerages rate the stock "buy" or higher, 13 "hold" and one "sell"; their median PT is $445.3 - data compiled by LSEG

** As of last close, shares up about 39.1% YTD