The ASX share market is known for its volatility, but wouldn't it be good to own ASX blue-chip shares that can keep growing their underlying earnings regardless of what's going on?
No company's share price is guaranteed to be stable during bear markets, but a steady (and growing) profit could help cushion investor fears. And that could lead to a less hefty share price fall than the market.
The two companies below are what I'd call leaders of their sectors. They have demonstrated an ability to increase their underlying values over time. I wish I had bought them when their share prices were much lower. Let's dive in.
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Wesfarmers Ltd (ASX: WES)
Retail conglomerate Wesfarmers is one of the best in Australia, with its key Bunnings and Kmart businesses. The company also owns other well-known brands such as Officeworks, Target, and Priceline, as well as a chemicals, energy and fertilisers company called WesCEF.
Over the past five years, the ASX blue-chip share has demonstrated the importance of its offering and how there's always demand for what it sells, whether that's during lockdowns, a period of a high-spending boom or when financially stressed households are looking for value.
Despite plenty of other retailers seeing profits falling during the last year or two, Wesfarmers revealed that FY25 total revenue rose 1.5%, and net profit after tax (NPAT) climbed 3.7% to $2.6 billion.
Both Kmart and Bunnings have attracted customers with their value offerings during this period, and I think their success can continue, even if economic conditions improve, with a rising possibility of interest rate cuts in the near term.
Goodman Group (ASX: GMG)
Goodman is one of the largest property businesses in Australia. It describes itself as an owner, developer and manager of high-quality, sustainable logistics properties and data centres in major global cities that are critical to the digital economy.
It has a presence in Australia, New Zealand, Asia, Europe, the United Kingdom and the Americas. Its portfolio includes logistics and distribution centres, warehouses, light industrial, multi-storey industrial, business parks and data centres.
The ASX blue-chip share has done very well growing its global property portfolio, partly due to its continually large project pipeline. It has benefited from various tailwinds, including rising levels of e-commerce and investments by companies wanting to improve their supply chains.
At 30 September 2024, the business had $12.8 billion of development work in progress (WIP) across 74 projects, with data centres representing 42% of WIP.
The rental side of its business continues to impress despite the headwind of high interest rates. In the first quarter of FY25, Goodman achieved 4.9% like-for-like net property income (NPI) growth with the properties in its partnerships. It had an occupancy rate of 97.4% across the partnerships.
Pleasingly, the business is forecast to grow its FY25 operating earnings per security (EPS) by 9%.
