I am a blogger, newsman and native of Peoria, Illinois, world headquarters of Caterpillar Inc. I live in Silicon Valley today, where I earn a living on the copy desk at the San Jose Mercury News. My downstate Illinois roots inspired me to create Cat Stock Blog (http://catstockblog.com/), the only blog devoted exclusively to news, links and lore of Caterpillar Inc.

Cat Stock Blog uses Caterpillar's stock price as a window on the fortunes of the company and the macroeconomic forces that shape the heavy equipment industry. Caterpillar is an essential company: Its 100,000 employees create the world's leading brand of heavy construction and mining machinery.

I figured a Dow 30 company with sales of over $40 billion a year would have multiple blogs covering its every move. I checked, found none, and created Cat Stock Blog to snatch up the idea before somebody else did.

I've been a newsman for 20 years and a blogger since long before the term was invented (I've met the author; he issues his regrets). I follow newspaper industry standards of accuracy and fairness, but I am not a working financial journalist. I occasionally copy edit business stories along with the mix of murders, graft and corruption that fill the space between the ads of a local daily newspaper.

Though I am not a financial pro, I have been a bear-scratched student of the stock market for the past 10 years. I have a solid grounding in the fundamentals of trading, charting and decoding indicators that drive stock performance. I've bought high and sold low enough times to know the folly of predicting the market's direction.

Cat Stock Blog was not conceived out of charity for Caterpillar shareholders. I plan to attract an audience of Cat workers, suppliers and investors big enough to find my retirement, which could begin day now, given the newspaper industry's travails.

I do not own shares of Caterpillar stock, though members of my family draw Caterpillar pensions.

Visit his blog: Cat Stock Blog (http://catstockblog.com/)