At the turn of the month, it's often an interesting thought exercise to take a look at the month-on-month share price performance of the prominent S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) shares. Today, we're examining the Australia and New Zealand Banking GrpLtd (ASX: ANZ) share price.
The ASX banks have been some of the best ASX 200 performers in recent months, arguably helping the index reach its new all-time highs in May.
We even saw Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA) crack $100 a share for the first time ever, a level it remains above today (at the time of writing, anyway).
So, how did things go in May?
Well, the ANZ share price started the month at $28.74 and finished at $28.71. That's a very small loss of 0.1%. But that rather vanilla comparison hides some volatility that ANZ shares experienced over May.
Early in the month, ANZ actually got rather close to its own 52-week high of $29.55, hitting $29.10 on 3 May. It then fell by more than 7% by 12 May, only to recover 7% by 28 May. I suppose the journey was the destination there.
So, what happened in May for this ASX bank? Well, not a whole lot of official news came out of ANZ over the month. However, it did get some love from a broker.
As my Fool colleague James Mickleboro reported on 17 May, fellow bank (and in this case) broker Macquarie Group Ltd (ASX: MQG) retained its outperform rating on ANZ shares with a 12-month price target of $30.50.
Later in the month, we also covered how Daniel Moore, co-portfolio manager of the Investors Mutual Australian Share Fund sees a dividend bonanza from ASX banking shares over the next year or so.
Moore cited healthy capital ratios, as well as a potential lift in the banks' dividend payout ratios going forward. He said these were reasons to be bullish on banking dividends (and possibly even share buybacks) in 2021 and beyond.
About the ANZ share price
Today, ANZ shares are pretty flat, having gained 0.14% to $28.35 a share. That gives the bank a market capitalisation of $80.6 billion, a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 17.1 and a trailing dividend yield of 3.7%.
