The three ASX shares I'm going to mention in this article are rated as 'buys' by several brokers.
It's quite hard to find businesses that are both good businesses and trading at a good price. Even then, one person might say Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA) and another says that Transurban Group (ASX: TCL) is a better choice.
Investment site MarketIndex regularly collates the ratings of brokers together to assess what the broker community collectively think are opportunities. Of course, this still isn't a guarantee of success – they could all be herding together.
With that in mind, here are three ASX shares that brokers like:
Macquarie Group Ltd (ASX: MQG)
Macquarie continues to be an attractive financial alternative to the big banks like Westpac Banking Corp (ASX: WBC). At least 11 analysts rate the Australia-based global investment bank as a buy, which means it's one of the most heavily backed blue chips.
Capital markets remain fairly fertile ground for Macquarie, with the US Fed seemingly pausing on its rate hikes the party may go on for a bit longer.
Macquarie management have proven shrewd at evolving the investment bank into a diversified financial business with operations all over the world, not just one with highly cyclical earnings. The focus on managing infrastructure assets should smooth out earnings through upcoming slower times.
Macquarie is trading at under 14x FY19's estimated earnings.
Afterpay Touch Group Ltd (ASX: APT)
Afterpay is the most popular buy now, pay later business with both ASX investors and its key "millennial" customer demographic.
There are currently at least five analysts who rate Afterpay as a buy. It's easy to see why some people are still upbeat about Afterpay, despite its share price rising by around 33% over the past month.
Afterpay announced a couple of weeks ago that underlying sales in the first half of FY19 grew by 140% to $2.2 billion with the US business processing annualised sales of $500 million based on the December 2018 half-year performance.
If Afterpay can continue to add an average of 7,500 new customers per day like it did in the second quarter of FY19 then there's no reason to believe it can't justify its very lofty valuation of nearly 120x FY20's estimated earnings over time.
Aristocrat Leisure Limited (ASX: ALL)
The gaming provider and publisher is a popular choice with analysts – at least 11 currently rate it as a buy.
Aristocrat Leisure's land-based products are available in over 90 countries, it's a global business. Its diverse range of products and services like electronic gaming machines, casino management systems and digital social games give it several growth avenues.
In FY18, reported revenue grew by 44.7% and reported that profit after tax increased by 9.6%. With the way the share price has dropped in recent months you'd think the company is going to report a decline in profit, but some early numbers suggest that the next result could be good too.
It's trading at 19x FY19's estimated earnings, which seems reasonable to me.
Foolish takeaway
These three shares seem like good picks to me, I can see why the analyst community thinks they're buys. Afterpay is clearly going very well, but the valuation means I couldn't invest in it today, it could fall heavily if it doesn't deliver on expectations in the short-term.
However, Aristocrat and Macquarie could both prove to be good-market beaters over the next three to five years.
