Mining Boom Pumps Up Terex

Rising demand for giant off-the-road tires suggests there's more upside for the makers of jumbo-sized earth-moving equipment such as Caterpillar(CAT) and Terex(TEX).

The two stocks have rallied more than 50% and threefold, respectively, over the past two years on the back of the commodity-price boom as mining companies have snapped up every available digger and truck that money could buy.

But so lucrative has been the business of extracting metals and minerals that manufacturers of mining equipment can't make enough of the vehicles. Waiting times have stretched to two years for even the best customers and even longer for those not buying fleets of the multimillion-dollar earth-haulers.

At least part of the problem has been a dearth of OTR tires, which stand up to 12 feet tall and sell for as much as $50,000 each.

"The demand is there, but if you don't have the parts, you can't deliver the final product," says John Kearney, an analyst at Morningstar in Chicago. More specifically, trucks without tires, for the most part, aren't a feasible answer.

Kearney points to Terex's burgeoning order backlogs, which shot up 56% companywide in the first quarter vs. a year earlier. The increase was driven in part by mining-segment backorders, which more than doubled.