ASX reporting season is upon us. It's always an exciting time for investors – to me, it's like Christmas with each result like unwrapping a present.
It's particularly exciting to look at results for companies you're invested in.
I own a number of different investment names in my portfolio but there are three results I'm particularly looking forward to.
Fortescue Metals Group Ltd (ASX: FMG)
Fortescue is one of the largest ASX mining shares in Australia. In fact, it's one of the biggest iron ore miners in the world.
The business has a number of demands on its capital and profit.
It's investing heavily in its green energy division which is aiming to produce green hydrogen, green ammonia, and high-quality batteries that can be used in equipment like large trucks. I'll be very interested to hear about the most recent progress this division has made and its intentions for FY24.
The ASX share is also spending money on exploring and developing new iron ore projects and green commodities that could be used by Fortescue Future Industries (FFI).
Shareholders have expectations of a pretty large dividend yield. It will be interesting to see what dividend payout ratio the company decides on. But, for my bank account's sake, I hope it's a pretty good payment.
Commsec numbers suggest Fortescue shares could end up paying an annual dividend of $1.74 per share.
Rural Funds Group (ASX: RFF)
Rural Funds is a farmland real estate investment trust (REIT) that owns a portfolio across almonds, cattle, macadamias, vineyards, and cropping (namely sugar and cotton).
There has been a lot of talk about commercial property values after the run of interest rate rises. It'll be interesting to see what Rural Funds reports in terms of its property values.
The ASX share's revenue is benefiting from inflation because some of its rental contracts have inflation-linked rent rises. Other rental income has fixed annual rental income increases, which is also driving revenue higher.
While interest rate rises cause higher interest costs, Rural Funds has hedged a lot of its debt at a very reasonable level and is expecting rental profit to grow in FY24.
I'll be watching the distribution guidance for FY24 intently. I'm particularly interested in whether Rural Funds be able to afford to grow the total payment to investors by 4%.
Altium Limited (ASX: ALU)
Altium is a leading ASX tech share that provides engineers with electronic printed circuit board (PCB) design software, as well as other software offerings like the electrical parts search engine Octopart and cloud platform Altium 365.
Not only am I interested in how the ASX share is doing with its revenue growth and profit margins, but the result could be a good indicator of how confident the corporate world is feeling about investing for the future. Altium's customer base is full of names like Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet, Disney, Tesla, Mercedes, Space X, Cochlear Ltd (ASX: COH), and many more.
Ongoing demand and growth for Altium's services could suggest the business world remains in good health and, perhaps, the economy is stronger than expected.
I'm expecting the company to unveil another good outlook for FY24.
