Here are 5 ASX stocks at 12 month highs, and whether it is time to buy

Here are 5 ASX stocks at 12 month highs!

Humm Group (ASX:HUM)

Humm has been through a difficult few years. Obviously, as a company that offered BNPL services, it was been battered by the Tech Wreck of 2022 – albeit not as badly as other companies given Humm has a profitable consumer finance business, not to mention a commercial asset finance division that is likewise profitable. A botched attempt by Humm’s management to sell the consumer business to Latitude Group (ASX:LFS) did not help its cause.

Things are different now, however. In the 2nd half of 2022, there was a major board refresh and a rationalisation of the consumer business. Humm opted to focus on big ticket items between $1,000 and $30,000 such as car repair, solar panels and dental work. Investors remained sceptical until the company’s FY24 results, but the doubters have been proven wrong. The company made a $7.1m statutory profit after-tax, up 145% from the year before. It grew its loan book to $5bn, up 18%, while having a stable NIM of 5.5%, executing $13.2m in cost savings, and a Net Credit Loss of 1.8%. The company stuck to its pledge of paying out 30-40% of its Free Cash Flow, with a 1.25c per share payout.

Botanix (ASX:BOT)

Botanix closed CY23 with a major setback, in the form of the FDA not being satisfied with its regulatory dossier for Sofdra – a gel aimed to treat primary axillary hyperhidrosis (excessive sweating). There was one issue to be clarified before the FDA would approve it. Namely, how the patient was instructed to use the product. The FDA provided some detail as to how it wanted the instructions and ordered the company undertake a human factors validation study to indicate that the revise instructions were capable of being followed.

Shares rallied throughout the first half of CY24 in hope that approval was forthcoming, and they were ultimately right. The green light came in mid-June, making Sofdra the first and only new chemical entity approved for its indication. It has been estimated that there are 10 million people in the US for whom Sofdra could make a big difference.

Beforepay (ASX:B4P)

Another company suffering from interest rate increases. It is will well below its IPO price, but has rallied in recent months due to anticipation of rate cuts, the company finally becoming profitable, as well as optimism of growth from future products. In FY24, the company achieved an $8.5m EBITDA result and a $3.9m pre-tax profit – marking the first time these metrics were in positive territory. It boasted record Active Users (over 240,000) and actually saw net defaults fall from 2.1% to 1.4%.

Beforepay is working on a new business, Carrington Labs, to provide AI-powered risk model and lending solutions. Moreover, a new loan product enabling customers to access greater sums for a longer period of time, is also a work in progress.

AI-Media (ASX:AIM)

If you need something translated, isn’t Google Translate good enough? Not for professionals evidently, because this company provides professional translation and transcription services. CY24 has been a good year for the share price, spurred by its half-yearly and full-year results, not to mention one of the most prominant fund managers publicly disclosed ownership in the stock.

Ai-Media made $66.2m in revenue, up 7% on the prior corresponding period. Its profit was in negative territory by $1.3m, although this was down from the $m loss the year before. It appears investors were more excited by the 15% growth in its gross profit (representing a 64% margin, up from 60% from the year before) as well as the 24% EBITDA growth to $4.1m. But the cherry on top was that the company was not just talking about Artificial Intelligence, but was gaining from it with its LEXI AI-Powered Captioning Tool kit.

Medibank Private (ASX:MPL)

We all know about the disastrous cyber breach. When companies go through crises like these, it could be a one-off chance to buy a good stock at a bargain price, or the risk of it being a straw that breaks the camels back – in other words, resulting in several underlying issues coming to the surface. For Medibank, it appears it was the latter.

Medibank’s group operating profit was $688.9m (up 8%), its profit attributable to shareholders $492.5m (up 60%) and it generated $182.2m in investment income (32%).

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