The Bank of Queensland Limited (ASX: BOQ) share price touched a new 52-week high this morning. BOQ shares closed at $8.60 yesterday and opened at $8.59 this morning. Just after open, investors sent its shares up 1.2% to a new 52-week high of $8.78 a share.
The market got cold feet soon after though, and Bank of Queensland shares are down 0.47% for the day at a share price of $8.55 at the time of writing. Even so, the company's share price is now up a healthy 10.18% year to date.
This is a significant move for the bank. Today's rise means that the company was trading at a level higher than where it commanded this time last year, just before the coronavirus pandemic sent markets into a tailspin.
Bank of Queensland shares are now up around 90% from the lows that we saw last May. Those lows were significant as well, since the $4.51 share price BoQ hit in mid-May was the lowest share price the company had seen since back in 1999. I guess investors took that Prince song a little too literally back then.
So what could be behind today's move to a new 52-week high?
Bank of Queensland shares bump to new high
Well, BoQ did announce a new non-executive director to the markets before yesterday's open. The company told us that Mickie Rosen would assume the role of non-executive director, effective 4 March 2021. However, it's unlikely that this announcement is behind today's move.
Instead, we can possibly put today's move down to general positive sentiment over the entire ASX banking sector. Ever since the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) announced an extension of its quantitative easing (QE) program earlier in the month, ASX bank shares have been trending higher. Banks are quite leveraged to the overall levels of economic growth in the economy. Thus, a continuation of easy monetary policy from the RBA has been taken as good news for ASX bank shares.
Further, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA) reported its half-year results last week. Since then, investors have been rather taken with the ASX banks – perhaps an effect of CBA increasing its interim dividend to $1.50 a share.
That's up from the 98 cents per share final dividend that CBA paid out last year. After a drought of a year in terms of dividends in 2020, some enthusiasm over shareholder payouts climbing again is certainly understandable.
