Heavy equipment maker Caterpillar’s soaring profit reflects strong demand in developing nations and offers reasons for optimism about the global economy and the prospects for other American manufacturers.

“They are a pretty good barometer,” analyst Jeff Windau with Edward Jones said of Caterpillar.

That’s because Caterpillar sells its yellow-and-black mining and construction equipment around the world and can benefit from growth wherever it’s occurring, while its reach also means the company’s business reflects global economic trends.

Caterpillar predicts the world’s economy as a whole will grow at a lukewarm rate of 3.5 percent in 2011, but developing regions will grow at nearly double that pace and continue buying equipment for mining and for upgrading their infrastructure.

Caterpillar, based in Peoria, Ill., said Thursday that its fourth-quarter net income more than quadrupled to $968 million, or $1.47 per share, on $12.8 billion revenue. Those results beat analysts’ expectations and easily topped the $232 million in net income, or 36 cents per share, that it earned a year earlier on $7.9 billion in revenue.