If you’re lucky enough to have $10,000 sitting in a savings account, then now could be an opportune time to invest it.

After all, the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) is still down 25% from its February high and interest rates are at historical lows and unlikely to improve any time soon.

With that in mind, here are three ASX 200 shares that I believe would be worth considering as investments:

Appen Ltd (ASX: APX)

Appen is a provider of human annotated dataset development services. The company’s million-strong crowd sourced team of experts prepare the data that goes into the machine learning and artificial intelligence models of some of the world’s biggest tech companies. Given the growing importance of this technology and expectations that spending on it will grow materially over the next decade, I believe Appen is well-placed for long term growth.

CSL Limited (ASX: CSL)

Another option for investors to consider buying is this biotherapeutics giant. I think CSL is well-placed to be a market beater again over the next decade thanks to the quality of its therapies and the high level of investment in research and development it makes each year. In respect to the latter, in FY 2019 CSL invested a massive US$832 million in R&D activities across its businesses. I expect these investments to bear fruit over the coming years and cement its position at the leader in its field.

NEXTDC Ltd (ASX: NXT)

Another company which I think could be a great option for a $10,000 investment is NEXTDC. The data centre operator has been growing very strongly over the last few years thanks to the increasing amount of data being generated by both consumers and businesses. And with data consumption only going to increase in the future as more software moves to the cloud and 5G internet adoption grows, the future looks bright for NEXTDC.

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James Mickleboro owns shares of NEXTDC Limited. The Motley Fool Australia’s parent company Motley Fool Holdings Inc. owns shares of CSL Ltd. The Motley Fool Australia owns shares of Appen Ltd. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691). Authorised by Scott Phillips.

The post Where to invest $10,000 in ASX 200 shares immediately appeared first on Motley Fool Australia.

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The Pushpay Holdings Ltd (ASX: PPH) share price continued its positive run on Tuesday and raced to a record high of $6.54 this morning.

When the donor management system provider’s shares reached that level, it meant they were up around 70% since the start of the year.

Why is the Pushpay share price at a record high?

Investors have been fighting to get hold of the company’s shares since the release of a very strong full year result release last week. 

That result revealed that Pushpay has continued its meteoric growth in 2020 despite the global coronavirus pandemic.

For the 12 months ended March 31, the company reported a 33% increase in operating revenue to US$127.5 million.

This was driven by a 39% increase in total processing volume to US$5 billion, a 42% lift in customer numbers to 10,896, and flat average revenue per user of US$1,317 per month.

But perhaps most impressive was the operating leverage it achieved during the 12 months.

Its operating revenue may have grown 33% during the 12 months, but its operating expenses needed to only lift by 5% to achieve this. As a result, as a percentage of operating revenue, its operating expenses reduced from 65% to 52%.

This ultimately led to the company reporting a whopping 1,506% increase in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, amortisation and foreign currency gains/losses (EBITDAF) to US$25.1 million.

What about the future?

More of the same is expected in FY 2021 despite the pandemic. In fact, you might argue that the pandemic is accelerating the adoption of its technology and therefore its growth.

Management notes that church closures have led to a clear shift to digital, with customers utilising its mobile first technology solutions to communicate with their congregations.

In light of this and its expectation of achieving further operating leverage, management has provided EBITDAF guidance of between US$48 million and US$52 million. This represents a 91.2% to 107% increase, respectively, year on year.

But it doesn’t expect its growth to stop there. Management is aiming to grow its share of the medium and large church market to 50% in the future.

This represents a US$1 billion opportunity and is many multiples the US$127.5 million it achieved in FY 2020.

Based on its current EBITDAF margin (which is likely to expand in the future as it scales), US$1 billion in revenue would equate to EBITDAF of ~US$197 million. Once again, this is many times more than the US$25.1 million it achieved this year.

Due to the quality of its offering and its strong market position, I feel confident the company will achieve this target during the 2020s.

In light of this, I think Pushpay is a tech share to buy and hold for the long term along with Altium Limited (ASX: ALU) and Appen Ltd (ASX: APX).

More reading

• 3 ASX growth shares to buy immediately with $3,000
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• 3 ASX shares that could set you up for life

Motley Fool contributor James Mickleboro has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool Australia owns shares of and has recommended PUSHPAY FPO NZX. The Motley Fool Australia owns shares of Altium and Appen Ltd. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691). Authorised by Scott Phillips.

The post The Pushpay share price is up 70% in 2020: Why I would still invest appeared first on Motley Fool Australia.

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