ASX 200 Weekly Wrap: ASX lower despite bumper dividends

The S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) recorded a second straight week in the red last week after a tide of earnings reports resulted in some big re-valuations from investors. The index lost 0.2% for the week, leaving the ASX 200 at 6,793.8 points.

That's a good 1.8% away from the post-March 2020 high of 6,917 points we saw back on 16 February, but still well above the 6,685 point level the ASX 200 started the year at.

After Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA) reported the week prior, we heard from the rest of the big four banks last week. National Australia Bank Ltd (ASX: NAB), Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd (ASX: ANZ) and Westpac Banking Corp (ASX: WBC) all delivered quarterly updates last week.

Of those three, it seems investors were most impressed by Westpac. The Westpac share price pushed 8.8% over the week spurred by the bank's results on Wednesday. That included a 54% jump in quarterly profits. The ANZ share price also had a strong week, rising 7.2%.

Mining giants BHP Group Ltd (ASX: BHP) and Rio Tinto Limited (ASX: RIO) also had strong weeks after announcing massive new dividend payments.

The BHP share price hit a new all-time intra-day high of $49.32 just after open on Wednesday as a result. Meanwhile, the Rio Tinto share price also reset its own highs when it hit $128.90 on Thursday.

BHP announced a fully franked interim dividend of US$1.01 for investors, a 55% beat on its previous interim payout. Rio announced a final fully franked dividend of US$4.02 (including a special dividend component) for its shareholders on Thursday.

ASX giant CSL Limited (ASX: CSL) also reported its results on Thursday. It initially delighted investors with a 16.9% increase in revenues and a 9% bump to its dividend.

However, all of these shares were caught up in a massive market sell-off on Friday, which dampened an interesting week with a 1.3% one-day slide.

Take CSL. The CSL share price spiked to $295.22 at market open on Thursday after the company's earnings report was released. However, by Friday, it finished the week at $274.43, a slide of more than 7%. We saw very similar moves from all of the shares discussed above. So what happened on Friday?

Well, it seems that the ASX's overlord, a.k.a. the US markets, had a bruising day of trading on Thursday, which dampened investors' sentiment and perhaps triggered a wave of profit-taking from some of the week's biggest performers on the ASX.

In the week's other news, several ASX companies in the buy now, pay later (BNPL) and fintech sectors got speeding tickets from the ASX for seemingly-unprovoked spikes in price and share trading volume. These included Zip Co Ltd (ASX: Z1P), Douugh Ltd (ASX: DOU), Novatti Ltd (ASX: NOV) and IOUpay Ltd (ASX: IOU).

Oh, and Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) hit another series of new all-time highs last week as well. The cryptocurrency is now trading for over US$57,500 per coin (at the time of writing) after exceeding US$50,000 for the first time on Wednesday.

How did the markets end the week?

It was a bit of a rollercoaster on the ASX 200 last week. Monday and Tuesday kicked things off on the right foot with rises of 0.9% and 0.7% respectively. Wednesday saw a retreat of 0.46%, while Thursday was essentially flat.

But Friday's hefty 1.34% slide saw the index go backwards for the week. All up, the ASX 200 started at 6,806.7 points and finished up at 6,793.8 points, a drop of 0.19%.

Meanwhile, the All Ordinaries Index (ASX: XAO) also took a step backwards, starting at 7,081.3 points, and finishing up at 7,064 points for a 0.24% slide.

Which ASX 200 shares were the biggest winners and losers?

Put the tea on and fetch the bikkies because it's time for our Foolish take on the gossip pages. So let's unpack the biggest winners and losers for the week, starting, as always, with the losers:

Last week's wooden spoon went to contractor company NRW Holdings. NRW delivered its earnings report last week, and it was something of a mixed bag. Revenues and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) were up 44% and 28% respectively, while net profits fell 17%. Investors have clearly chosen to take the 'glass half empty' view on this one.

Meanwhile, water company GWA Group was given a backhand by investors after an evidently disappointing earnings report. This included a 17% fall in profits to $20 million.

Next up was the newly-wedded ASX gold miner Northern Star Resources. Northern Star has been suffering some buyers' remorse from investors of late after its merger with Saracen Mineral Holdings a few weeks ago. A sluggish gold price and a rising Aussie dollar aren't assisting.

Finally, wealth manager Netwealth also had a clanger. The catalyst? You guessed it, earnings. Investors weren't too impressed with what Netwealth put on the table, despite the company delivering an earnings boost of more than 30%.

Now with the losers out of the way, here are last week's winners:

EML topped the ASX 200's winners' list last week with a whopping 24.2% gain. Investors couldn't control themselves when EML released its earnings report, which came with a 61% rise in revenues to $95.3 million and a net profit growth rate of 30% to $13.2 million.

The Nearmap share price was also an earnings beneficiary when its own result came out. The mapping company gave the markets a 322% rise in earnings and a halving of its previous statutory loss to $9.4 million.

Lithium company Lynas also continues to shine. As my Fool colleague Gretchen Kennedy looked at, there are reports that China is looking to curb the exporting of the rare earth minerals that Lynas also produces.

Finally, Zip continued to enjoy rising sentiment last week. That was despite no major news out of the BNPL company, in addition to the ASX speeding ticket we touched on earlier.

A wrap of the ASX 200 blue-chip shares

Before we go, here is a look at the major ASX 200 blue-chip shares as we start another week on the markets. A note for this week: we have just surpassed the 12-month anniversary of the ASX's last peak (and all-time high) of ~7,139 points that we saw on 21 February last year. So expect to see the odd 52-week high move around over the next few weeks!

And finally, here is the lay of the land for some leading market indicators:

• S&P/ASX 200 Index (XJO) at 6,793.8 points.
• All Ordinaries Index (XAO) at 7,064 points.
• Dow Jones Industrial Average Index (DJX: .DJI) at 31,494.32 points after rising 0.003% on Friday night (our time).
• Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) going for US$57,550 per coin.
• Gold (spot) swapping hands for US$1,784.28 per troy ounce.
• Iron ore asking US$168.44 per tonne.
• Crude oil (Brent) trading at US$62.91 per barrel.
• Australian dollar buying 78.7 US cents.
• 10-year Australian Government bonds yielding 1.43% per annum.

That's all folks. See you next week!