There’s been too much hype around Caterpillar versus the expected reality of a muted recovery in construction activity, said Eli Lustgarten, analyst at Longbow Research.

“The U.S. is the biggest near-term upturn because it’s been down for 3 years in a row and all 50 percent this year,” said Lustgarten. “But housing recovery will be slow, non-residential construction is just starting to go down into 2011 and the highway bill has been postponed until March of 2011. So you’ll get a recovery, but it will be muted.”