S&P/ASX 200 Financial Index (ASX: XFJ) shares rose by 1.01% on Tuesday amid a fresh record high for the broader S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO).
The ASX 200 lifted by 1.76% to a new record of 8,446.4 points in late afternoon trading before closing slightly lower at 8,374 points. Block Inc (ASX: SQ2) stock was the best performer of the financial sector, lifting 7.05% to a new record high of $140.22, making it the third biggest riser of the ASX 200. Block shares closed at $139.38, up 6.17%.
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Price records among ASX financial shares on Tuesday
Other ASX financial shares also hit new price records yesterday during intra-day trading.
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA) share price hit a new all-time high of $157.28.
ANZ Group Holdings Ltd (ASX: ANZ) shares rose to a multi-year high price of $32.80.
Bendigo and Adelaide Bank Ltd (ASX: BEN) shares lifted to a multi-year high of $13.55.
Insurance Australia Group Ltd (ASX: IAG) shares hit a multi-year high of $8.29.
Hub24 Ltd (ASX: HUB) shares cracked a new all-time record at $73.74 per share.
Wilson Asset Management has released a newsletter profiling two ASX financial shares that it's backing for further growth.
Let's find out which stocks they are and why the analysts are bullish on them.
2 ASX financial shares backed by the experts
First up, we have Zip Co Ltd (ASX: ZIP) shares.
The Zip share price has had an incredible rally, up 432% in 2024 alone.
The buy now, pay later company has made good inroads in restoring investors' confidence with impressive market reports in recent times after a rocky few years.
Zip shares traded at a high of $3.37 on Tuesday before closing at $3.28.
Wilson Asset Management portfolio manager, Tobias Yao said the ASX financial share's rise has been driven by growth in the company's US business.
In recent quarterly results, Yao noted that Zip's US business earnings grew by 43% and beat expectations.
Looking ahead, falling interest rates should provide a tailwind for Zip shares, he said.
Yao commented:
We think Zip Co will be a beneficiary of any interest rate cuts in Australia with consumer sentiment, spending and credit quality likely to improve.
We continue to see strong momentum in the business and see the potential for further earnings upgrades over the course of the year.
Next up is HMC Capital (ASX: HMC) shares.
The alternative asset manager is another ASX financial share that lifted to a new all-time record high on Tuesday. The HMC Capital share price rose by 2.6% to $11.80 during intraday trading before closing at $11.68.
Wilson Senior Investment Analyst Shaun Weick likes HMC's growing exposure to data centres.
He notes the manager's recent $300 million institutional capital raising to buy Sydney data centre owner Global Switch Australia for $1.9 billion.
The data centre will be a seed asset for HMC's new Global DigiCo Platform.
Weick said Global Switch has "significant growth opportunities with a large scale development pipeline to expand its existing information technology (IT) capacity".
He commented:
There is currently strong demand from investors seeking exposure to high quality digital infrastructure assets and as a result, the placement was oversubscribed.
We believe this acquisition provides solid exposure to the burgeoning data centre market.
HMC Capital's management team is also looking at further data centre opportunities in the US and we expect these acquisitions, along with Global Switch, to drive earnings and valuation growth over the coming years.
