DEERFIELD, Ill. (AP) _ Caterpillar Inc. (CAT) on Thursday reported third-quarter net income of $2.04 billion.

On a per-share basis, the Deerfield, Illinois-based company said it had profit of $3.87. Earnings, adjusted for restructuring costs, came to $3.95 per share.

The results surpassed Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of 11 analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $3.19 per share.

The construction equipment company posted revenue of $14.99 billion in the period, which also beat Street forecasts. Nine analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $14.34 billion.

Caterpillar shares have decreased almost 5% since the beginning of the year, while the S&P's 500 index has fallen 20%. The stock has fallen slightly more than 1% in the last 12 months.

This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on CAT at https://www.zacks.com/ap/CAT

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