Have you looked at the interest rates you're receiving on your savings accounts right now?
The majority of savings accounts offered by Australia and New Zealand Banking GrpLtd (ASX: ANZ) and the rest of the big banks are offering base rates of just 0.05% per annum.
This means that if you are lucky enough to have $50,000 sitting in a savings account, it would yield just $250 in interest per year.
As a comparison, over the last 30 years the Australian share market has generated an average annual return of approximately 9.2%. If it were to do this again over the next 12 months, your $50,000 would turn into $54,600.
That's a $4,600 return, compared to just $250 from the aforementioned savings account.
In light of this, I would sooner put my money to work in the share market than leave it to gather only paltry interest in a savings account.
With that in mind, I have picked out three top ASX shares which I think could provide strong returns for investors over the coming years. Here's why I would invest $50,000 into them:
a2 Milk Company Ltd (ASX: A2M)
This New Zealand-based fresh milk and infant formula company has been growing its earnings at an explosive rate over the last few years. The good news is that I remain confident this strong form can continue for the foreseeable future thanks to the growing demand for its infant formula products in the massive China market. This will be supported by its expanding fresh milk footprint and potential earnings accretive acquisitions.
Altium Limited (ASX: ALU)
Another ASX share to invest $50,000 into is Altium. It is an award-winning printed circuit board (PCB) design software provider. Over the last decade it has carved out a leading position in the electronic design market. This is a big positive given the proliferation of electronic devices thanks to the massive IoT and AI markets. I believe this is likely to lead to increasing demand for its software over the next decade.
Appen Ltd (ASX: APX)
Another ASX share to consider investing $50,000 into is Appen. It is a leading developer of high-quality, human annotated datasets for machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI). Appen prepares or creates the data for the machine learning models of some of the largest tech companies such as Facebook and Microsoft. It also assisted in the creation of Apple's Siri. I expect demand for its services to grow strongly in the coming years and drive above-average earnings growth.
