There are a lot of quality shares for investors to choose from on the ASX 200 index.

In order to narrow things down for investors, listed below are three ASX 200 shares that are rated highly by analysts and could be quality buy and hold options.

Here’s what you need to know about them:

Goodman Group (ASX: GMG)

The first ASX 200 share that could be a great buy and hold option is Goodman Group. It is a leading integrated commercial and industrial property group that owns a high quality portfolio of assets. Given that a good portion of its portfolio has exposure to structural tailwinds such as ecommerce and the digital economy, they look likely to be in demand with customers for a long time to come. This should be supportive of strong rental income and distribution growth over the next decade.

Citi is a fan of Goodman and has a buy rating and $24.00 price target on its shares.

Ramsay Health Care Limited (ASX: RHC)

Another ASX 200 share to consider as a buy and hold investment is Ramsay Health Care. It is a leading private healthcare company with operations across the world. After struggling during the pandemic, Ramsay has started to bounce back and looks set to benefit from a backlog in surgeries in the near term. Looking further ahead, the company appears well-placed for long term growth thanks to increasing demand for healthcare services due partly to ageing populations and increased chronic disease.

Morgans is positive on the company and has an add rating and $74.41 price target on its shares.

ResMed Inc. (ASX: RMD)

A final ASX 200 share to buy and hold could be ResMed. It is a medical device company with a focus on the sleep treatment market. Thanks to its industry-leading products, wide distribution network, and successful acquisitions, ResMed has been growing at a solid rate for years. The good news is that thanks to its significant market opportunity and the growing prevalence of sleep disorders, it has been tipped to continue this trend long into the future.

Citi is also bullish on ResMed and has a buy rating and $39.00 price target on its shares.

The post 3 excellent ASX 200 shares to buy and hold for a decade: analysts appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

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Motley Fool contributor James Mickleboro has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool Australia’s parent company Motley Fool Holdings Inc. has positions in and has recommended ResMed. The Motley Fool Australia has positions in and has recommended ResMed. The Motley Fool Australia has recommended Goodman Group. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691). Authorised by Scott Phillips.

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The Lake Resources NL (ASX: LKE) share price closed Friday’s session down 3.8% to 63.5 cents.

This caps off a hideous month for the ASX lithium share, which has slid 22% over this short period.

Why is the Lake Resources share price falling so much?

So, let’s get a bit of context here. Lake Resources is not the only ASX lithium share that has been falling over the past month.

Take a look:

• Sayona Mining Ltd (ASX: SYA) shares are down 13%
• Core Lithium Ltd (ASX: CXO) shares are down 7%
• Allkem Ltd (ASX: AKE) shares are down 2.9%
• Liontown Resources Ltd (ASX: LTR) shares are down 10%
• IGO Ltd (ASX: IGO) shares are down 5%.

But you see the problem, right?

It’s the scale of the Lake Resources share price fall at 22% that stands out.

Most of these ASX lithium shares are down, at least partly, due to some bearish outlooks for lithium prices. But that’s a common factor affecting all lithium stocks. Why is Lake Resources down so much more?

Short seller attack

A few lithium stocks are being targeted by short sellers right now, and Lake Resources is one of them.

Short-selling is a trading strategy where investors try to profit from a fall in the share price. They borrow, then sell the shares, with the intention of buying them back later when they fall in value to make a profit.

As my colleague James reported this week, Lake Resources remains among the ASX’s 10 most shorted stocks with 7.6% of its capital currently shorted. But there are a few lithium stocks on that list.

Core Lithium actually has a higher short interest than Lake Resources with 9.6% of its shares shorted. But as James points out, the reason for that shorting is valuation concerns. A bunch of investors think the Core Lithium share price is too high right now, so they’re betting on a correction.

The unique element of the short activity on Lake Resources is that it’s being directly attacked by a United States short-selling activist group called J Capital.

In July last year, J Capital released a report questioning operational matters relating to Lake Resource’s technology and project funding.

Lake Resources responded at the time saying the report “puts forth incorrect information on technical matters and inaccurate assertions … “.

J Capital has issued further reports since then, with the latest report released in December.

In short, J Capital doesn’t believe Lake Resources can achieve what it says it can, and they’re proactively hassling them on the details.

Should you buy Lake Resources?

This sort of thing is pretty confusing for ordinary investors. Many people don’t even understand what short selling is because it’s not a trading strategy that is typically available to retail investors. It’s the domain of institutional and sophisticated investors, like hedge fund managers.

To state the obvious, buying an ASX share that is the subject of a short attack is pretty gutsy. You need to really understand the ins and outs of the Lake Resources business and what J Capital is saying about it.

In order to decide whether to buy Lake Resources shares or not, prospective investors would have to do an enormous amount of research to satisfy themselves that what J Capital is saying isn’t right.

And that research is on top of the usual fundamental analysis that every investor should do on every ASX share they are considering investing in.

So, we’re talking about a serious time commitment here, and this might be one reason why the Lake Resources share price isn’t trading so well at the moment.

The post Down 22% in a month, is it time to dive in and buy Lake Resources shares? appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

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More reading

• Two ASX shares with bucketloads of growth potential: experts
• Why has the Sayona Mining share price crashed 20% in 2 weeks?
• Here are the 3 most heavily traded ASX 200 shares on Thursday
• Why this US$1 trillion milestone matters for ASX 200 lithium shares
• Down 38% since mid-November, is it time to bag some Liontown shares?

Motley Fool contributor Bronwyn Allen has positions in Allkem and Core Lithium. The Motley Fool Australia’s parent company Motley Fool Holdings Inc. has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool Australia has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691). Authorised by Scott Phillips.

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Last week, Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA) released its half year results and revealed just how much rising interest rates are boosting its profits.

For the six months ended 31 December, CBA reported a 12% increase in operating income to $13,593 million and a 9% lift in cash earnings to $5,153 million.

This allowed the CBA board to increase its interim dividend by 20% year over year to a fully franked $2.10 per share.

The good news is that its final dividend is forecast to be even larger. According to a note out of Morgans, its analysts expect a fully franked final dividend of $2.40 per share, bringing the total dividends to $4.50 per share.

Based on where CBA shares are currently trading, this will mean a fully franked 4.5% yield for investors.

How to generate a $20,000 second income from CBA shares

If Morgans is on the money with its forecast, for a $20,000 second income you would need to own approximately 4,444 CBA shares.

Unfortunately, this would come at some cost for investors.

CBA shares are currently fetching $100.97. This means you would need to invest approximately $450,000 to yield the desired amount.

The long way

What if you don’t have $450,000 to invest? Well, don’t rule out being able to achieve this goal in the future.

The share market has generated a return of 10% per annum historically. With that in mind, making consistent investments into a balanced portfolio of high quality ASX shares could get you to $450,000 sooner than you might think.

The market is of course not guaranteed to generate a 10% per annum return in the future, but if it were to deliver returns in line with historical averages and your portfolio matched it, investing $10,000 per year would grow into $450,000 in 17 years.

Once it gets to that point, you could then switch your focus to income and build a portfolio yielding 4.5% to receive a $20,000 second income without lifting a finger.

The key is to have a plan, stick to it, and let compounding work its magic.

The post How I’d generate a $20,000 second income from CBA shares appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

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More reading

• CBA shares ‘do not look cheap’ despite recent selloff: broker
• Passive income watch: 3 ASX 200 shares that announced boosted dividends this week
• Is the CBA share price a buy following Wednesday’s 5% fall?
• Earnings preview: Here are the ASX shares reporting on Thursday
• 5 things to watch on the ASX 200 on Thursday

Motley Fool contributor James Mickleboro has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool Australia’s parent company Motley Fool Holdings Inc. has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool Australia has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691). Authorised by Scott Phillips.

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There are many exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to choose from on the ASX, both active and passive.

Although the funds themselves are traded on the ASX, many of these contain overseas stocks.

The situation then gets complicated because the buying and selling price for these shares becomes dependent on the exchange rate of the Australian dollar.

Some ETF providers have provided a solution around this by providing currency-hedged funds.

Hedged funds will use financial instruments to smooth out the effects of any exchange rate fluctuations over time.

So when should you buy into a currency-hedged ETF, and when should you go for the unhedged ETF?

Shaw and Partners portfolio manager James Gerrish gave his thoughts recently on this dilemma:

The Australian dollar is a risk currency

Gerrish took the example of Betashares Nasdaq 100 ETF (ASX: NDQ) and BetaShares NASDAQ 100 ETF-Currency Hedged (ASX: HNDQ).

“These are ASX listed ETFs yet they are holding US assets such as Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ: MSFT), Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ: AMZN),” he said on a Market Matters Q&A.

“NDQ is not hedged whereas the HNDQ ETF is currency hedged.”

He explained that if the NASDAQ-100 (NASDAQ: NDX) rises by 10%, HNDQ is designed to do the same.

“NDQ is also exposed to the vagaries of the Australian dollar,” said Gerrish.

“If the Aussie falls by 10% your gains on the underlying stock could be wiped away and, of course, vice versa.”

The conventional wisdom is to buy the hedged ETF when the Australian dollar is low, and buy the unhedged version when the Aussie is high against other currencies.

However, Gerrish’s insight is that the difference is not as significant as one might think.

“Unhedged exposures generally have a smoothing effect on returns for Australian investors given the Australian dollar is a risk currency,” he said.

“When markets fall, the Australian dollar generally falls as well, cushioning the decline.”

Over the past year, NDQ has fallen 11.5% while the currency-hedged HNDQ has lost 17%.

The post Hedged or unhedged: Which ASX ETF do I buy? appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

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More reading

• Here are 3 quality ETFs for ASX investors to buy right now
• This ASX tech share’s rallied 16% in 2 months. Here’s why
• Does the BetaShares Nasdaq 100 ETF share price fall make it a no-brainer buy?
• These top ETFs could be great options for beginner ASX investors
• Top ASX ETFs to buy in February 2023

John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Motley Fool contributor Tony Yoo has positions in Amazon.com, BetaShares Nasdaq 100 ETF, Betashares Nasdaq 100 ETF – Currency Hedged, and Microsoft. The Motley Fool Australia’s parent company Motley Fool Holdings Inc. has positions in and has recommended Amazon.com, Apple, BetaShares Nasdaq 100 ETF, and Microsoft. The Motley Fool Australia’s parent company Motley Fool Holdings Inc. has recommended the following options: long March 2023 $120 calls on Apple and short March 2023 $130 calls on Apple. The Motley Fool Australia has positions in and has recommended BetaShares Nasdaq 100 ETF. The Motley Fool Australia has recommended Amazon.com, Apple, and Betashares Nasdaq 100 ETF – Currency Hedged. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691). Authorised by Scott Phillips.

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