The S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) roared into the weekend today, surging 0.62% to finish at 7,558.1 points. That sees it within 1% of its all-time high and marks a 0.86% week-on-week gain.

Its gains came despite a poor performance from mining shares. The S&P/ASX 200 Materials Index (ASX: XMJ) tumbled 1.4% on Friday after iron ore futures slumped 0.9% overnight and gold futures dropped 0.6%.

Fortunately, it was the only sector to trade in the red today.

Leading the market's gains was the S&P/ASX 200 Healthcare Index (ASX: XHJ) and the S&P/ASX 200 Real Estate Index (ASX: XRE) – rising 2.5% and 2.4% respectively.

Meanwhile, the S&P/ASX 200 Information Technology Index (ASX: XIJ) followed the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index (NASDAQ: .IXIC) higher, lifting 0.6% following the Wall Street index's 3.2% overnight gain.

But with nearly all sectors trading higher today, which ASX 200 shares outperformed all others? Let's take a look.

Top 10 ASX 200 shares countdown

The biggest gainer on the ASX 200 today was Pinnacle Investment Management Group Ltd (ASX: PNI).

There was no news from the investment management company today. However, its stock tumbled 2.7% on the back of its first half earnings yesterday.

These shares made today's biggest gains:

Our top 10 shares countdown is a recurring end-of-day summary to let you know which companies were making big moves on the day. Check in at Fool.com.au after the weekday market closes to see which stocks make the countdown.

The post Here are the top 10 ASX 200 shares today appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

But don't worry because listed below are three recent broker buy recommendations that still have plenty of upside potential.

Here's why brokers think these ASX shares are in the buy zone:

Allkem Ltd (ASX: AKE)

According to a note out of Goldman Sachs, its analysts have a buy rating and $15.20 price target on this lithium miner's shares. Although the broker is expecting lithium prices to weaken substantially in the next 18 months, it remains positive on Allkem. This is due to its attractive valuation at under 1x NAV and its plan to grow production 4x by FY 2027. The broker expects the latter to offset lower lithium prices. The Allkem share price is trading at $11.94 on Monday.

HMC Capital Ltd (ASX: HMC)

A note out of Morgans reveals that its analysts have an add rating and $5.85 price target on this property development company's shares. Morgans highlights that the HMC Capital share price has fallen heavily amid broad weakness in the REIT sector. Its analysts feel that this has created a buying opportunity for investors. Particularly given its capital light business model and track record for executing on complex deals. The HMC share price is fetching $4.42 on Monday.

Rio Tinto Ltd (ASX: RIO)

Analysts at Morgan Stanley have an overweight rating and $125.00 price target on this mining giant's shares. The broker believes that Rio Tinto is well-placed to benefit from an increase in spot commodity prices in recent months. In fact, the broker has recently upgraded its earnings estimates for the miner to reflect this. The Rio Tinto share price is trading at $118.38 this afternoon.

The post Leading brokers name 3 ASX shares to buy today appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

Three top ASX shares that leading brokers have named as buys this week are listed below. Here's why they are bullish on them:

Aristocrat Leisure Limited (ASX: ALL)

According to a note out of Citi, its analysts have retained their buy rating and $41.20 price target on this gaming technology company's shares. The broker notes that digital bookings showed signs of rebasing in November. Citi sees this as a positive, particularly given that its Pixel United business continues to outperform peers. Outside this, the broker continues to view Aristocrat's land-based business as well positioned and remains optimistic on the real money gaming opportunity. The Aristocrat share price is trading at $33.69 this afternoon.

BHP Group Ltd (ASX: BHP)

A note out of Macquarie reveals that its analysts have retained their outperform rating and lifted their price target on this mining giant's shares to $50.00. Macquarie made the move after lifting its estimates to reflect stronger than expected iron ore prices. However, based on current spot prices, these estimates could yet prove conservative. Macquarie's current estimates imply the payment of a fully franked 6.1% dividend yield in FY 2023. The BHP share price is currently fetching $47.00.

HMC Capital Ltd (ASX: HMC)

Analysts at Morgans have retained their add rating on this property development company's shares with a trimmed price target of $5.85. Morgans highlights that HMC's shares haven fallen heavily due to weakness in the REIT sector this year. It feels that this has created a buying opportunity. The broker points out that it has a capital light business model and a track record for executing on complex deals. The HMC share price is trading at $4.46 on Monday.

The post Leading brokers name 3 ASX shares to buy today appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

Will the market be able to build on this on Monday? Here are five things to watch:

ASX 200 expected to fall

The Australian share market looks set to give back Friday's gains on Monday following a poor finish to the week on Wall Street. According to the latest SPI futures, the ASX 200 is expected to open the day 35 points or 0.45% lower this morning. On Wall Street, the Dow Jones was down 0.9%, the S&P 500 fell 0.7%, and the NASDAQ dropped 0.7%.

Oil prices drop

ASX 200 energy shares Santos Ltd (ASX: STO) and Woodside Energy Group Ltd (ASX: WDS) could have a soft start to the week after oil prices dropped again on Friday night. According to Bloomberg, the WTI crude oil price was down 0.6% to US$71.02 a barrel and the Brent crude oil price fell 0.1% to US$76.10 a barrel. Oil prices tumbled 11% last week amid concerns over demand.

Woolworths to acquire Petstock?

The Woolworths Group Ltd (ASX: WOW) share price will be one to watch this morning amid speculation the retail conglomerate is on the verge of making a major new acquisition. According to the AFR, Woolworths is close to signing an agreement to acquire pet accessories and food retailer Petstock. No acquisition price was provided but it is likely to come with a sizeable price tag given Petstock reportedly achieved sales of almost $700 million and profit before tax of $54 million in FY 2022.

HMC rated as a buy

The HMC Capital Ltd (ASX: HMC) share price could be great value according to analysts at Morgans. This morning, the broker has retained its add rating with a $5.85 price target. This implies almost 30% upside for the property development company's shares. It said: "The share price has been impacted by the overall REIT sector underperformance this year, however with a capital light business model and a track record for executing on complex deals we back management to deliver on its targets."

Gold price rises

Gold miners such as Newcrest Mining Limited (ASX: NCM) and Northern Star Resources Ltd (ASX: NST) could have a decent start to the week after the gold price pushed higher on Friday. According to CNBC, the spot gold price was up 0.5% to US$1,810.7 an ounce during the session. The gold price rose on hopes the US Federal Reserve could still slow its rate hikes.

The post 5 things to watch on the ASX 200 on Monday appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

Ask A Fund Manager

The Motley Fool chats with the best in the industry so that you can get an insight into how the professionals think. In this edition, Tribeca Investment Partners portfolio manager Simon Brown reveals the two shares he'd snap up now at a 40% discount.

Cut or keep?

The Motley Fool: Let's examine three ASX shares that have been devastated this year and see if you think each of these fallen stars is now a bargain to pick up or if you'd stay away.

The first one is Life360 Inc (ASX: 360), which has dropped almost 40% in the past 12 months. What do you think?

Simon Brown: Yeah, similar to comments that I made with relation to NextDC Ltd (ASX: NXT), in terms of a high growth business where discount rates went up, cost of money increased, and you've seen a reasonably violent de-rating. 

It probably doesn't help that it hadn't been necessarily profitable. It is investing for growth and spending quite a bit of money — and those growth rates are very high. So as an investor, if they can continue to invest money to generate those rates of growth, you've got to be reasonably happy.

But you've seen names within the sector that have held up far better. Some of those larger growth names haven't come off nearly as much as Life360 has, and there's probably a bit of a difference there that those ones have reasonable levels of cash generation and profits.

I guess there was a misstep somewhere. It was with the acquisition of Tile, which probably hasn't performed to expectations that were laid out when they made the acquisition. That's baked into the share price as it is now. But it also puts pressure on the business to look to make that acquisition work. 

And they've got a program coming up where they're going to bundle Tiles for new subscribers to incentivise customers to sign up to their membership plans. So that's looking to be rolled out in calendar year 2023. We think that should be an opportunity to continue to monetise their user base and potentially lift the level of profitability.

They just raised money, you might have seen in the press just recently. Given that they've got that trajectory towards cash positive later in calendar year 2023, they thought it was prudent to raise some money just to make sure if economic impacts in the US or the like had an impact on growth. 

So that's a name we've been on record as saying we've been quite supportive of throughout its journey since COVID, when they were able to demonstrate they were quite resilient in a downturn. It's a name that we've really, really liked and we are supportive of what that business is doing.

MF: Do you still hold it?

SB: Yes, we do.

MF: Fantastic. Next one is Dusk Group Ltd (ASX: DSK), which has fallen about 40% this year. What do you reckon about that one?

SB: Consumer discretionary has been a challenging area to get a huge amount of confidence, in terms of investment. 

I think that the most recent update was strong — ahead of where analyst expectations are. But I guess that there's a couple of things. It is a little bit challenging to get a true read on the rate of growth given that we had the Delta lockdowns last year, in that first quarter of FY22. So the run rate comparisons are hard to get an underlying feeling of the true rate of growth, given that the prior comparable period was very depressed.

Secondly, given the level of inflation that's been coming through, particularly for domestic retailers such as Dusk, who import a lot of their products that they sell, there has been a lot of price inflation. That is clouding the ability to see the true underlying volume of sales. We suspect that's probably weaker than the nominal sales that are being recorded. 

If you are coming into a period where that rate of inflation is slowing, the higher rates are pressuring consumers and they're more thoughtful about what they're buying, it potentially puts pressure on some of these retailers. They'll be forced back into some degree of discounting and it could prove problematic for margins.

Expectations aren't particularly lofty for the space, but given how leveraged they are with cost bases very much skewed towards wages and rent, both of which are escalating reasonably strongly, it doesn't take a huge amount of disappointment at that sales level to translate into meaningful movements in profit.

So yeah, we're on the sidelines there, just waiting for the interest rate rises that started in March to flow through into consumers. You tend to start to see the impacts around nine months after the first rate rise. We are watching very closely there as to how much of an impact we see on consumers and how that will relate to future earnings for companies like Dusk.

MF: Fair enough. The last one, which has also plunged about 40% this year is HMC Capital Ltd (ASX: HMC).

SB: That's the old HomeCo. It's a property funds management business. They've got two listed REITs — HomeCo Daily Needs REIT (ASX: HDN) and the Healthco Healthcare and Wellness REIT (ASX: HCW) — so they're an alternative asset manager. 

We think David Di Pilla's done a good job there to date. We're a big fan of the funds management model in property. You've obviously got some very successful examples of that model in Charter Hall Group (ASX: CHC) and Centuria Capital Group (ASX: CNI). 

[HMC Capital] emanated out of small caps that we've invested in previously, that have done very well for our fund. We identified HomeCo as a name that was coming off a smaller base. They had lower levels of invested assets, meaning that as they looked to grow via acquisition, those acquisitions can have a more meaningful impact on growth. 

So that's a name that we quite like. They continue to accumulate properties and start new funds. 

Look, there has been a property cycle within REIT to some degree. You've had interest rates going up, which should flow through to lower property values via an increase in cap rates there. There's been a degree of value destruction across that REIT space, where a number of the names are trading at fairly steep discounts to their last reported net tangible assets.

You'd argue there's a degree of devaluation in their properties already imputed in the share price. And we think once rates plateau and start to come back down — as they inevitably will as economic growth slows — there's probably an opportunity for the space, including HMC, to pick up a tailwind there. And do better given the underperformance of the whole space over the last 12 months.

The post 40% sale! 2 cheap ASX shares to buy for a better 2023: fundie appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

The S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) recovered from Friday's 0.87% fall, and then some, today. The index closed 1.15% higher at 6,863.5 points.

It followed a strong Friday session on Wall Street. The Dow Jones Industrial Average Index (DJX: .DJI) lifted 2.6% to post its fourth consecutive weekly gain. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 Index (SP: .INX) rose 2.5% and the Nasdaq Composite Index (NASDAQ: .IXIC) gained 2.9%.

Such gains didn't rub off on all ASX 200 sectors today, however. The S&P/ASX 200 Energy Index (ASX: XEJ) slipped 0.4% amid falling oil prices.

The Brent crude oil price fell 1.2% to US$95.77 a barrel on Friday while the US Nymex crude oil price slipped 1.3% to US$87.90 a barrel.

On the other end of the market, the S&P/ASX 200 Information Technology Index (ASX: XIJ) jumped 2.6% despite broad expectations the Reserve Bank of Australia could hike rates by between 0.25% to 0.5% tomorrow.

Mining stocks also had a reasonable day, with the S&P/ASX 200 Materials Index (ASX: XMJ) gaining 0.1%.

All in all, 10 of the ASX 200's 11 sectors closed higher on Monday. But which share outperformed all others? Keep reading to find out.

Top 10 ASX 200 shares countdown

Today's top-performing ASX 200 share was Home Consortium Ltd (ASX: HMC). It gained close to 8% despite only silence from the property group on Monday.

Today's biggest gains were made by these shares:

Our top 10 shares countdown is a recurring end-of-day summary to let you know which companies were making big moves on the day. Check in at Fool.com.au after the weekday market closes to see which stocks make the countdown.

The post Here are the top 10 ASX 200 shares today appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

Will the market be able to build on this on Friday and end the week on a high? Here are five things to watch:

ASX 200 expected to fall

The Australian share market looks set to end the week in the red after Wall Street tumbled overnight. According to the latest SPI futures, the ASX 200 is expected to open 55 points or 0.8% lower this morning. In late trade in the United States, the Dow Jones is down 0.9%, the S&P 500 has dropped 0.7%, and the Nasdaq has fallen 0.35%.

Oil prices rise again

Energy producers such as Beach Energy Ltd (ASX: BPT) and Woodside Energy Group Ltd (ASX: WDS) could have a decent finish to the week after oil prices pushed higher again overnight. According to Bloomberg, the WTI crude oil price is up 1% to US$88.61 a barrel and the Brent crude oil price is up 1.3% to US$94.57 a barrel. OPEC's production cuts have boosted prices to three-week highs.

Dividends being paid

Today is payday for a number of dividend-paying ASX 200 shares. This includes insurance broker AUB Group Ltd (ASX: AUB), waste management company Cleanaway Waste Management Ltd (ASX: CWY), property company Home Consortium Ltd (ASX: HMC), telco Spark New Zealand Ltd (ASX: SPK), and logistic solutions technology company WiseTech Global Ltd (ASX: WTC).

Gold price edges higher

Gold miners including Newcrest Mining Ltd (ASX: NCM) and St Barbara Ltd (ASX: SBM) will be on watch after the gold price edged higher overnight. According to CNBC, the spot gold price is up 0.05% to US$1,721.70 an ounce. The precious metal appears to be running out of steam after some strong gains recently.

TechnologyOne rated neutral

The team at Goldman Sachs has retained its neutral rating on TechnologyOne Ltd (ASX: TNE) shares with a $13.15 price target. This follows the company's Showcase event this week, which highlighted its cloud-native future and new fee model. Goldman commented: "The company did not elaborate on the pricing of its SaaS+ model, except to say that it will be greater than the current typical annual SaaS fee and will index with CPI."

The post 5 things to watch on the ASX 200 on Friday appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.