It has been another busy week for Australia's top brokers. This has led to the release of a large number of broker notes.
Three broker buy ratings that you might want to know more about are summarised below. Here's why brokers think these ASX shares are in the buy zone:
Appen Ltd (ASX: APX)
According to a note out of Citi, its analysts have retained their buy rating and $14.80 price target on this artificial intelligence data services company's shares. The broker has been looking into recent industry developments and doesn't believe the Meta (Facebook) high-performance self-supervised algorithm, data2vec, is an imminent threat to Appen's business. Particularly not for its Relevance business. In addition, it sees opportunities for Appen to shift to more complex work that would be out of reach for this algorithm. The Appen share price is trading at $9.40 today.
Aristocrat Leisure Limited (ASX: ALL)
A note out of Macquarie reveals that its analysts have retained their outperform rating and $46.00 price target on this gaming technology company's shares. While the broker acknowledges that Aristocrat's failure to close the acquisition of Playtech is disappointing, it remains positive on the future. This is due to its strong performance and outlook of the core business and its mountain of cash following its capital raising. The Aristocrat share price is fetching $41.04 on Friday.
Westpac Banking Corp (ASX: WBC)
Analysts at Morgans have retained their add rating and $29.50 price target on this banking giant's shares following its first quarter update. According to the note, Morgans believes that Westpac's update supports its view that the challenges the bank is facing are not unsurmountable and that its shares should not be priced like a value trap. The Westpac share price is trading at $21.45 on Friday afternoon.
