Category: Stock Market

Once again, a large number of broker notes hit the wires last week. Some of these notes were positive and some were bearish.

Three sell ratings that investors might want to hear about are summarised below. Here’s why top brokers think investors ought to sell these shares next week:

AMP Ltd (ASX: AMP)

According to a note out of UBS, its analysts have retained their sell rating and 90 cents price target on this embattled financial services company’s shares. UBS notes that consensus estimates for AMP’s results have been lowered. Despite this, it feels the market continues to expect too much from the struggling company and is forecasting a result well short of expectations. The AMP share price was trading at 96 cents on Friday.

ARB Corporation Limited (ASX: ARB)

A note out of Credit Suisse reveals that its analysts have retained their underperform rating but lifted their price target on this 4×4 parts manufacturer’s shares to $40.60. While Credit Suisse was pleasantly surprised to see ARB outperform its estimates during the first half of FY 2022, it isn’t enough for a change of rating. Credit Suisse still believes ARB’s shares are overvalued at the current level and has concerns that its margins are unsustainable. The ARB share price was fetching $44.33 at Friday’s close.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA)

Analysts at Morgans have retained their reduce rating and $74.00 price target on this banking giant’s shares. According to the note, the broker continues to believe that CBA’s shares are overvalued at the current level and don’t deserve to trade at such a premium to the rest of the big four banks. Morgans is expecting first half cash earnings of $4.320 billion and a fully franked interim dividend of $1.74 per share. CBA will no doubt need to deliver something significantly better than this to change Morgans’ mind about its shares. The CBA share price was trading at $94.10 at Friday’s close.

The post Top brokers name 3 ASX shares to sell next week appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

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• Own CBA (ASX:CBA) shares? Here’s how the bank is investing in BNPL-style home loans
• Hunting for ASX shares? Experts say to avoid this sector in 2022
• What can the Westpac results tell us about the outlook for ASX 200 bank shares?
• Top brokers name 3 ASX shares to sell today
• Why these brokers think that the CBA (ASX:CBA) share price is a sell

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 recommended ARB Corporation Limited. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691). Authorised by Bruce Jackson.

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If you have room for a share or two in your portfolio then take a look at the excellent ASX 200 shares listed below.

Analysts have recently tipped these shares as ones to buy. Here’s what you need to know:

CSL Limited (ASX: CSL)

The first ASX 200 share for investors to look at is CSL. It is one of the world’s leading biotechnology companies and the name behind the CSL Behring and Seqirus businesses. Both are leaders in their respective fields of plasma therapies and vaccines.

In addition, the company is in the process of making a major acquisition. It is aiming to acquire Vifor Pharma, which is a leader in iron deficiency, nephrology and cardio-renal therapies, for $16.4 billion.

Citi is a fan of CSL. It recently upgraded the company’s shares to a buy rating with a $340.00 price target.

It was pleased with the acquisition of Vifor, commenting: “Because of the large difference in the earnings multiples of both companies and the low cost of debt, we expect the transaction to be double digit NPATA accretive (although ROIC dilutive). The key positive from the transaction is that it expands the CSL late stage R&D pipeline, which we have noted for some time was limited for a company the size of CSL.”

Wesfarmers Ltd (ASX: WES)

Another ASX 200 share to look at is Wesfarmers. It is the conglomerate behind several popular retail brands such as Bunnings and Kmart. It also has a diverse portfolio of industrial businesses.

While FY 2022 has been a tough year because of lockdowns and other COVID headwinds, the company looks well-placed for the future thanks to its strong brands, diverse operations, and balance sheet strength. The latter looks set to support M&A activity and the potential expansion into the healthcare sector.

Morgans is very positive on the company. It currently has an add rating and $60.80 price target on its shares.

The broker recently commented: “The company is run by a highly regarded management team and the balance sheet is healthy. While COVID-related staff shortages are proving to be a challenge, the core Bunnings division (>60% of group EBIT) remains a solid performer as consumers continue to invest in their homes. We see the recent pullback in the share price as a good entry point for longer term investors.”

The post 2 fantastic ASX 200 shares to buy right now appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

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• Morgans names 4 more of the best ASX shares to buy in February
• The Wesfarmers (ASX:WES) share price is 20% off its all-time high. Is it a buy?

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. owns and has recommended CSL Ltd. The Motley Fool Australia owns and has recommended Wesfarmers Limited. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691). Authorised by Bruce Jackson.

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Last week saw a number of broker notes hitting the wires once again. Three buy ratings that investors might want to be aware of are summarised below.

Here’s why brokers think investors ought to buy them next week:

Macquarie Group Ltd (ASX: MQG)

According to a note out of Morgan Stanley, its analysts have retained their overweight rating but trimmed their price target on this investment bank’s shares to $235.00. The broker is expecting a solid update from Macquarie next week thanks largely to its private markets and commodities exposure. And while it has cut its price target after adjusting the multiples used its valuation method, the potential upside remains sufficient to main its overweight rating. The Macquarie share price ended the week at $192.34.

National Australia Bank Ltd (ASX: NAB)

A note out of UBS reveals that its analysts have resumed coverage on this banking giant’s shares with a buy rating and $30.50 price target. UBS believes NAB is well-placed for a recovery in its earnings thanks to stronger than average new business growth and improving net interest margins. The broker also appears optimistic that NAB’s business banking operations will return to form after losing market share recently. The NAB share price was fetching $27.91 at Friday’s close.

Nufarm Ltd (ASX: NUF)

Analysts at Morgans have retained their add rating and lifted their price target on this agricultural chemicals company’s shares to $7.20. This follows the company’s investor day which revealed a strong start to FY 2022 and aspirational growth targets that were far greater than the market was expecting. All in all, Morgans is confident that material value will be unlocked over the coming years. The Nufarm share price ended the week at $5.52.

The post Top brokers name 3 ASX shares to buy next week appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

More reading

• The Macquarie (ASX:MQG) share price is down 10% in 2022, time to jump on it?
• These were the best performing ASX 200 shares last week
• Why top brokers see further upside to the Nufarm (ASX:NUF) share price
• Tech stocks crash, while Nufarm soars. Scott Phillips on Nine’s Late News
• Looking to buy NAB (ASX:NAB) shares? Read what this broker says first

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 recommended Macquarie Group Limited. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691). Authorised by Bruce Jackson.

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If you’re interested in bolstering your income portfolio with some new dividend shares, then the two listed below could be worth considering next week.

Here’s what analysts are saying about these dividend shares right now:

Baby Bunting Group Ltd (ASX: BBN)

The first ASX dividend share to consider is Baby Bunting. It is a baby products retailer with a strong and growing presence both online and through its collection of 60 national superstores across Australia. Combined, this makes Baby Bunting the clear leader in the category.

One broker that is a fan of the company and sees significant growth ahead is Citi. It currently has a buy rating and $6.11 price target on its shares.

Citi commented: “We reiterate our Buy rating and see the company having a range of multi-year growth strategies including rollout (target of 110+ stores, with 68 expected by end of FY22e), exclusive/private label growth and supply chain efficiencies.”

As for dividends, Citi has pencilled in fully franked dividends per share of 16 cents in FY 2022 and 20 cents in FY 2023. Based on the current Baby Bunting share price of $5.19, this will mean yields of 3.1% and 3.85%, respectively.

Woodside Petroleum Limited (ASX: WPL)

Another ASX dividend share to look at is Woodside. This energy producer could be a top option thanks to strong oil prices and its upcoming merger with the petroleum assets of BHP Group Ltd (ASX: BHP).

The team at Morgans is a fan of the company and the merger. In fact, the broker believes Woodside is getting the better part of the deal.

It commented: “From an economic standpoint we think WPL is clearly getting the better of the deal, with synergies not baked into deal metrics and BHP willing to accept a discount. The deal is transformative, lifting WPL into being a top 10 global E&P with +2 billion barrels of 2P reserves, with EBITDA of US$4.7bnpa and growth options.”

Morgans has an add rating and $30.55 price target on its shares. It is also forecasting dividends per share of $1.26 in FY 2021 and then $1.29 in FY 2022. Based on the current Woodside share price of $26.27, this will mean yields of 4.8% and 4.9%, respectively.

The post Why analysts rate these ASX dividend shares as buys appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

More reading

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• Morgans names the best ASX resources shares to buy in February
• Own ASX 200 energy shares? Here’s what OPEC’s been up to
• 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 recommended Baby Bunting. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691). Authorised by Bruce Jackson.

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Key points

• These two ASX 200 tech shares have global growth plans, giving them very large addressable markets
• Altium is one of the world-leading electronic PCB software businesses. It’s making electronic design more convenient for clients and more profitable for the ASX share
• Xero is one of the leaders of cloud accounting software

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The S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) may not be known for its technology shares, but there are some wonderful examples of ASX 200 growth shares in the software sector here.

Businesses that are looking to become world leaders at what they do could be attractive ideas to consider.

The recent ASX share market correction has given us the opportunity to look at strong businesses with plenty of potential:

Altium Limited (ASX: ALU)

Altium is a leading business in the electronic PCB design space. It has several products and services that the global electronics design industry can use, such as Altium Designer and Octopart. The company serves teams of all sizes from large design teams down to just one-person operations.

This business is looking to dominate and transform the industry. It’s looking to capture enough market share to be able to dictate how the sector will look going forwards – like Microsoft did with its office software.

Altium is also looking to shift to cloud operations with its Altium 365 offering so that engineers can collaborate from anywhere. This could be useful in today’s home-working revolution. The ASX 200 tech share continues to see more clients move onto Altium 365.

It claims to already have the most widespread PCB design tool – Altium Designer – and PCB designers will be able to connect to the wider engineering ecosystem using the company’s Altium 365 and Nexar offerings.

The company continues to grow revenue and has a longer-term goal of US$500 million of revenue. Scale and recurring revenue will help it earn higher margins and it’s also paying shareholders with bigger dividends every year.

Xero Limited (ASX: XRO)

Xero is one of the largest technology businesses listed in Australia, with a market capitalisation of $16.3 billion (according to the ASX).

This ASX 200 software share provides leading cloud accounting software. The aim is for accountants and business owners to be able to collaborate easily and that the accounting/business functions are easy to use, whilst also saving tons of time.

Xero has not had the success in the US that it was probably hoping for, but it’s quickly growing in many other places including the UK, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Singapore. Xero recently carried out a bolt-on acquisition to boost its prospects in Canada.

One of the main strengths of Xero is that it has a very high profit margin, which increased from 85.7% to 87.1% in the FY22 half-year result. This strong margin allows most of the revenue to turn into gross profit, enabling the business to re-invest heavily for more long-term growth.

The total lifetime value of Xero’s subscribers continues to grow thanks to subscriber growth, strong customer retention and growth in the average revenue per user (ARPU). The HY22 ARPU rose by 5% to $31.32, subscribers increased 23% and the total lifetime value of subscribers soared 61% to $9.94 billion.

The post 2 ASX 200 shares that could be top buys for growth appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

More reading

• The Macquarie (ASX:MQG) share price is down 10% in 2022, time to jump on it?
• These were the best performing ASX 200 shares last week
• Here are the top 10 ASX shares today
• Freaky Friday: Why was the ASX 200 so indecisive today?
• Expert sounds the warning bell on ASX ETFs… Here’s why

Motley Fool contributor Tristan Harrison owns Altium. The Motley Fool Australia’s parent company Motley Fool Holdings Inc. owns and has recommended Altium and Xero. The Motley Fool Australia owns and has recommended Xero. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691). Authorised by Bruce Jackson.

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Key points

• Since the start of 2022, the Macquarie share price has fallen by approximately 10%
• In the first half of FY22, its profit doubled to approximately $2 billion
• Macquarie is expecting to deliver more long-term performance. Is it a buy?

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The Macquarie Group Ltd (ASX: MQG) share price has dropped by around 10% from the start of the year, with a decline of 9%. That compares to the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) which has dropped 6.2% from the start of the year.

Global investment bank Macquarie has a market capitalisation of $72.7 billion according to the ASX. Despite the short-term weakness, it has actually gone up by 43% in the past year.

What’s going on with the Macquarie share price?

Like most ASX shares, and global shares, the Macquarie share price has fallen amid concerns about inflation and what that could mean for interest rates in FY22 and beyond.

It was only a few months ago that the investment bank reported that profit had soared in the first half of FY22.

Macquarie’s net profit after tax surged 107% to $2.04 billion year on year for the six months to 30 September. However, it was in-line with the second half of FY21. The result saw a significant increase in net profit contribution from all four operating groups compared to the first half of FY21.

The business is becoming increasingly globally-focused, with international income making up 72% of total income in the first half of FY22.

A core driver of profitability is the amount of assets under management (AUM) that Macquarie has. It was managing $737 billion of AUM at the end of 30 September 2021, up 31% from March 2021. This may be able to assist is growing the Macquarie share price. 

Macquarie’s balance sheet was in a strong position with $8.4 billion of surplus capital and a bank CET1 capital ratio of 11.7%.

The investment bank also raised $1.5 billion to provide additional flexibility to invest in new opportunities where the expected risk-adjusted returns are attractive, while maintaining an appropriate capital surplus.

Macquarie acknowledged that it has experienced period of sustained and material growth in capital requirements, across its ‘annuity-style’  and market-facing activities. Management still see a strong pipeline of opportunities.

Dividend

The global investment bank decided to pay an interim dividend of $2.72 per share.

Macquarie outlook

The ASX share is continuing to maintain a cautious stance, with a conservative approach to capital, funding and liquidity that positions the investment bank “well to respond to the current environment”.

Macquarie’s CEO, Ms Wikramanayake, said:

Macquarie remains well-positioned to deliver superior performance in the medium-term. This is due to our deep expertise in major markets; strength in business and geographic diversity and ability to adapt the portfolio mix to changing market conditions; an ongoing program to identify cost saving initiatives and efficiency; a strong and conservative balance sheet and a proven risen management framework and culture.

Macquarie share price rating

Morgan Stanley currently rates the Macquarie share price as a buy, with a price target of $235. That’s more than 20% higher than where it is now.

While plenty of ASX shares may face challenges with interest rates rising, the broker points out that whilst parts of Macquarie will also suffer, other parts could benefit. So, rising interest rates would not be a total negative for the business.

Based on the current Macquarie share price, it’s valued at 18x FY22’s estimated earnings according to Morgan Stanley.

The post The Macquarie (ASX:MQG) share price is down 10% in 2022, time to jump on it? appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

More reading

• These were the best performing ASX 200 shares last week
• Here are the top 10 ASX shares today
• Freaky Friday: Why was the ASX 200 so indecisive today?
• Expert sounds the warning bell on ASX ETFs… Here’s why
• These 3 ASX 200 shares are topping the volume charts on Friday

Motley Fool contributor Tristan Harrison 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 recommended Macquarie Group Limited. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691). Authorised by Bruce Jackson.

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The Appen Ltd (ASX: APX) share price has had a difficult start to the year.

Since the start of 2022, the artificial intelligence data labelling services provider’s shares are down 15% to $9.46.

This means the Appen share price is now down 58% over the last 12 months.

What’s going on with the Appen share price?

The Appen share price has come under pressure in recent weeks for a number of reasons.

One of those is of course the broad weakness in the tech sector, which has been caused by concerns over the prospect of interest rate increases happening quicker than expected.

Another reason is the recent update from one of its biggest customers, Meta (Facebook), which revealed that the social media giant has experienced significantly weaker advertising demand and revenues than expected.

This doesn’t bode well for Appen, as Facebook uses Appen’s services to support its advertising operations. Appen’s million-plus team of contractors help teach machines to predict which advertisements will resonate with which users.

But that may not be the only Meta blow that Appen has to deal with.

Will Meta disrupt Appen?

Also potentially weighing on the Appen share price has been a recent major development by Meta in relation to artificial intelligence and self-supervised learning.

Meta notes that self-supervised learning is “where machines learn by directly observing the environment rather than being explicitly taught through labeled images, text, audio, and other data sources.” The latter is the type of service that Appen provides.

And while the social media giant highlights that self-supervised learning has powered many significant recent advances in artificial intelligence, it hasn’t been overly successful and human interaction has continued to be necessary in most cases.

But that could be about to change thanks to Meta’s data2vec, which is the first high-performance self-supervised algorithm that works across multiple modalities (text, images, speech, etc).

Meta explained: “We apply data2vec separately to speech, images and text and it outperformed the previous best single-purpose algorithms for computer vision and speech and it is competitive on NLP tasks. It also represents a new paradigm of holistic self-supervised learning, where new research improves multiple modalities rather than just one. It also does not rely on contrastive learning or reconstructing the input example. In addition to helping accelerate progress in AI, data2vec brings us closer to building machines that learn seamlessly about different aspects of the world around them. It will enable us to develop more adaptable AI, which we believe will be able to perform tasks beyond what today’s systems can do.”

“This paves the way for more general self-supervised learning and brings us closer to a world where AI might use videos, articles, and audio recordings to learn about complicated subjects, such as the game of soccer or different ways to bake bread. We also hope data2vec will bring us closer to a world where computers need very little labeled data in order to accomplish tasks,” it added.

The post Is there more pain ahead for the Appen (ASX:APX) share price? appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

More reading

• Brokers name 3 ASX shares to buy today
• Why is Meta’s earnings miss bad news for the Appen (ASX:APX) share price?
• Why did ASX 200 tech shares get annihilated today?
• With Afterpay shares no longer listed, is WAAAX officially dead?
• ASX 200 (ASX:XJO) midday update: Westpac higher on Q1 update, tech shares sink

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. owns and has recommended Appen Ltd. The Motley Fool Australia owns and has recommended Appen Ltd. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691). Authorised by Bruce Jackson.

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Key points

• The Westpac share price is cheap according to one leading broker, implying there’s 30% upside with the price target
• Westpac has been cutting costs, though its net interest margin is also under pressure
• Asset quality remain strong, though its quarterly result included an impairment charge of more than $100 million

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The Westpac Banking Corp (ASX: WBC) share price is rising after the bank delivered its FY22 first quarter update.

After seeing that announcement and the numbers, some of the country’s leading brokers now reckon that the big four ASX bank is worth buying.

Firstly, let’s look at what Westpac actually said before getting to the ratings:

Westpac’s FY22 first quarter performance

The big four bank reported that its statutory profit for the three months to December 2021 was $1.82 billion (up 80%) and cash earnings were up 74% to $1.58 billion. However, excluding notable items, cash earnings were only up 1%.

Westpac’s lending increased $5 billion, or 0.7% over the quarter. Expenses were down 26% to $2.7 billion. Excluding notable items, expenses fell 7%.

The business also didn’t get the benefit of the earnings of some of the businesses that it has sold off, like insurance.

However, the net interest margin (NIM) fell another 8 basis points to 1.91% because of competition and higher liquid assets. The NIM can be integral for profit changes, which then can have a flow on effect to the Westpac share price.

The bank took on an impairment charge of $118 million, mostly due to increased provision overlays, reflecting continuing COVID-19 related uncertainty.

However, asset quality metrics continue to improve and it finished the period with a common equity tier 1 (CET1) capital ratio of 12.2%.

Comments from management

The Westpac chief financial officer (CFO), Michael Rowland, said:

We have made a sound start to the year and we are seeing the cost benefits of our simplification programs. The environment however remains highly competitive and we continue to see pressure on margins.

Given this, we are bringing forward our simplification plans and changing our operating structure to improve efficiency and move more of our people closer to the customers they support.

Broker thoughts about the Westpac share price

Morgans is one of the most positive brokers on the big bank at the moment. It rates Westpac as a buy and the price rating is $29.50, that’s more than 35% higher than where it is today. The broker thinks that the medium-term doesn’t look too bad for the bank.

The broker notes that Westpac is working and delivering on cutting costs.

Based on Morgans’ estimates, the Westpac share price is valued at 9x FY23’s estimated earnings with a projected FY23 grossed-up dividend yield of 10.6%.

Morgan Stanley is less certain, with a hold/equal weight rating. The price target here is $22.20 – only slightly higher than today. This broker sees that costs are coming down, but it’s not clear how revenue and profit margins are going to perform.

Morgan Stanley puts the Westpac share price at 13x FY23’s estimated earnings.

The post Is the Westpac (ASX:WBC) share price too cheap to ignore? appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

More reading

• 2 quality ASX dividend shares for income investors to buy
• Brokers name 3 ASX shares to buy today
• Hunting for ASX shares? Experts say to avoid this sector in 2022
• Is the Westpac (ASX:WBC) share price good value after its first quarter update?
• 5 things to watch on the ASX 200 on Friday

Motley Fool contributor Tristan Harrison 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 recommended Westpac Banking Corporation. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691). Authorised by Bruce Jackson.

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Key points

• Some promising ASX shares are offering both reasonable dividend yields, earnings growth and plans for more
• Collins Foods is a leading fast food business with expanding networks of KFCs and Taco Bells
• Healthia is a rapidly growing allied health business which is growing organically and enacting a steady stream of acquisitions

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Some ASX shares are known for growth, whilst others are known for dividends. There is a select group that may be able to offer investors a combination of both growth and dividends.

These are businesses that have long-term growth plans whilst also paying shareholders dividends along the way:

Collins Foods Ltd (ASX: CKF)

Collins Foods is an ASX share that operates a network of KFCs in both Europe and Australia. It is steadily expanding its outlet numbers, which is adding to profitability. The company is also achieving long-term same store sales growth.

At the start of February 2022, it completed the acquisition of nine KFC restaurants in the Netherlands.

In the first half of FY22, underlying net profit increased by 31.6% to $28.9 million. This allowed the business to fund a 14% increase of the interim dividend.

But Collins Foods is no longer just a KFC business. It’s leveraging its KFC experience and fast-food know-how to scale its Taco Bell Australia business. The ASX share is investing in marketing to build brand awareness. HY22 Taco Bell revenue surged 33% to $14.8 million, reflecting the contribution of five new restaurants.

The Taco Bell segment is now breakeven at the earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) level. It increased the total to 17 restaurants. It’s expecting to add nine to 12 new outlets in FY22.

Overall, the ASX share is expecting to add 24 new restaurants across the group in FY22.

According to Commsec, the Collins Foods share price is valued at 23x FY22’s estimated earnings with a grossed-up dividend yield of 3.1%.

Healthia Ltd (ASX: HLA)

Healthia is a business that operates across multiple allied health services including optometry, podiatry and physiotherapy clinics.

The business is utilising two methods of growth. It’s looking to organically grow profit by improving its current clinic network. Healthia is also expanding through the use of acquisitions.

For example, in late December it announced acquisitions that would add underlying revenue of $9.52 million and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of $1.9 million. Those acquisitions by the ASX share included eight optometry locations and two physiotherapy locations.

FY21 saw the business grow underlying revenue by 51.8%, organic revenue growth of 9.1% and underlying earnings per share (EPS) growth of 51.6% to 11.13 cents. The business paid a FY21 annual dividend of 4.5 cents per share, the final dividend was increased by 25%.

The Healthia share price is valued at 16x FY22’s estimated earnings with a projected grossed-up dividend yield of 4.1%.

The post 2 ASX shares that could be good buys for both growth and dividends appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

More reading

• 2 ASX 200 shares with major upside potential
• Are these 2 beaten-up quality ASX shares now buys?
• Here are 4 ASX shares insiders are putting their money behind

Motley Fool contributor Tristan Harrison has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool Australia’s parent company Motley Fool Holdings Inc. owns and has recommended HEALTHIA FPO. The Motley Fool Australia has recommended Collins Foods Limited and HEALTHIA FPO. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691). Authorised by Bruce Jackson.

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If you’re looking for growth shares, then look no further. Listed below are four ASX growth shares which have been tipped for strong growth in the future.

Here’s why analysts have rated them as buys:

Altium Limited (ASX: ALU)

The first ASX growth share to look at is Altium. It is a printed circuit board (PCB) design software provider that has carved out a leading position in a growing electronic design market thanks to the quality of its technology. But the company isn’t settling for that and is now aiming to dominate this market with its cloud-based Altium 365 product. Analysts at Jefferies are positive on its future. The broker currently has a buy rating and $48.83 price target on its shares.

Breville Group Ltd (ASX: BRG)

Another growth share that could be a buy is Breville. It is a leading appliance manufacturer responsible for a number of popular brands. These include the Kambrook, Sage and Breville brands. The team at Morgan Stanley is very positive on the company. This is due partly to its global expansion, burgeoning product pipeline, and favourable consumer trends. Last week the broker retained its overweight rating and $36.00 price target on Breville’s shares.

Hipages Group Holdings Ltd (ASX: HPG)

A third ASX growth share to look at is Hipages. This leading Australian-based online platform and software as a service (SaaS) provider connects consumers with trusted tradies. While its recent quarterly update was disappointing due to the impact of lockdowns on its tradie subscriptions, Goldman Sachs remains confident that a post-lockdown rebound is coming. After which, it believes Hipages is well-placed for strong long term growth as it grows its ecosystem into a huge addressable market. The broker currently has a buy rating and $4.60 price target on its shares.

NEXTDC Ltd (ASX: NXT)

A final growth share that could be a buy is NEXTDC. It is a leading data centre operator which appears well-placed to benefit from the structural shift to the cloud. Particularly given its world class network of centres and expansion into edge centres. The company also has its eyes on the Asia market and has opened up offices in Singapore and Tokyo. These markets could provide NEXTDC with a long growth runway.

Citi is a fan and currently has a buy rating and $15.40 price target on NEXTDC’s shares.

The post 4 fantastic ASX growth shares to buy appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

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Motley Fool contributor James Mickleboro owns NEXTDC Limited. The Motley Fool Australia’s parent company Motley Fool Holdings Inc. owns and has recommended Hipages Group Holdings Ltd. and Temple & Webster Group Ltd. The Motley Fool Australia owns and has recommended Hipages Group Holdings Ltd. The Motley Fool Australia has recommended Temple & Webster Group Ltd. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691). Authorised by Bruce Jackson.

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