Depending on your age and time horizon as an investor you'll probably either be more focused on income or growth to provide your investing kicks.
If your old and dreamily rich you'll probably be looking to preserve your wealth with some defensive dividend stocks able to provide the regular cash payments for a blue-chip retirement.
However, if you're a little younger it's probably worth looking to some growth stocks to do most of the heavy lifting in getting rich, as growth shares undoubtedly have the potential to generate the best long-term returns.
Below I name three growth shares that look on reasonable valuations for smart investors to buy today.
Ramsay Health Care Limited (ASX: RHC) as the operator of private hospitals worldwide has a second-to-none track record of profit and divided growth over the last decade.
Often in investing it's better to forget about trying to work out what might change to focus on what won't change such as Ramsay's strong competitive position and powerful tailwinds in terms of the ageing population and overall spending on healthcare.
Ramsay shares have fallen 11% over the last six months, despite the group recently upgrading its full year profit guidance. Now may be the right time to pick up a parcel of shares for the long term.
XERO FPO NZ (ASX: XRO) is the Kiwi cloud-accounting business that is growing like a weed in the UK, Australia, and New Zealand, with an opportunity to grow in the giant U.S. market over time. It looks built for the future and could be still quite early in its growth journey, despite now having over 1 million subscribers to its subscription softwate-as-a-service products.
That's the good news, but the bad news is that the group is still a long way off turning a profit, although it expects to do so within its current cash balance. If successful I expect the share price will climb far above today's price of $18.20.
Iress Ltd (ASX: IRE) is probably Australia's leading fintech business and offers investors an attractive mix of income and growth. This company's long-term future is supported by the stickiness of its products and recurring revenues that they generate.
Iress has also been on an acquisitive trail recently and it's likely that the company could deliver some consistent earnings growth over the next fews years as a result of these acquisitions. Unfortunately the Iress share price now looks on the expensive side at $11.63 and I would like a share price around 10% cheaper before picking up shares.
