Caterpillar (NYSE:CAT) Investing Big in China, Brazil

China and Brazil have been the recipients of major investments by Caterpillar (NYSE:CAT) in their respective countries, as the giant builder of mining and construction equipment is expanding in major ways in the two countries.

Caterpillar will build a new plant in Brazil, while expanding at a location in China in order to build large excavators.

After focusing on emerging markets at their chief growth regions, Caterpillar is strongly positioned to run with that as departing CEO Jim Owens, who built the foundation in emerging markets slowly and steadily, will hand over the reins of the company to Doug Oberhelman, who will take over on July 1.

Oberhelman looks ready to ramp things up and build upon that foundation much quicker, now that Owens has put it in place.

Brazil Economy Smokin', Says Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS)

Morgan Stanley's (NYSE:MS) chief economist in Sao Paulo, Marcelo Carvalho, said the Brazilian economy is growing at a quicker pace than originally anticipated, and has changed the rate from 6.8 percent to a heftier 7.9 percent.

Now that China has started to cool off their economy, especially their urban property markets, the two countries will probably continue to grow at very similar rates, which in the case of China should be more sustainable and healthy for them.

Carvalho said, the Brazil "economy is booming."

For Brazil, this is probably a sign that some commodities are increasing in demand, although that wasn't specifically pointed out.

Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) CEO Sees Fast Continuing BRIC Growth

Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) CEO John Mack said he sees continual growth for BRIC countries in 2010, unsurprisingly, led by China and India.

Concerning the weakest link of the four countries, Russia, Mack said, "Russia still has a very strong balance sheet and low overall leverage, which remain key advantages for the country. However, it continues to lag in investment due to the volatile macro environment and weak property rights."

Even though growth around the world will probably slow down because of China's fight with inflation from their hot urban property market, no growth in the U.S., and the European sovereign debt crisis.

Regardless of what the growth rates end up being, Mack stated that "Our expectation is that the fastest rates of economic growth this year are expected to be in China, India, Brazil and Russia."