Deere Pins Hopes on Housing Recovery as Sales, Profits Drop

Deere & Co. reported a decrease in sales and profits for the quarter and guided forecasts down for farm equipment sales. While some headlines focus on the company beating analyst estimates, those numbers were mostly achieved through cost cutting and the financial services credit portfolio, not from sales. Deere is guiding higher for the third quarter, but again a decreased number from last year. The fiscal year 2014 earnings is also dropping. Deere is not expecting farmers to have good crops this year and hopes that the U.S. housing market will make up the difference.