Here at the Fool, we've recently been having a look at how some of the ASX 200's blue chip shares performed over the most recent quarter. The 2022 financial year began on 1 July, which means its first quarter wrapped up on 30 September.
As many of you probably know, the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) is dominated by the famous big four ASX bank shares. That's Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA), Westpac Banking Corp (ASX: WBC), National Australia Bank Ltd. (ASX: NAB) and Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd (ASX: ANZ).
Presently, CBA, Westpac, NAB and ANZ together make up four of the ASX 200's six largest companies. That means wherever the banks go, the ASX 200 usually isn't too far behind.
So how did the big four banks perform over the first quarter of FY2022? To give some context, the ASX 200 began July at 7,313 points and finished the quarter at 7,332.2 points on 30 September. That translates into a fairly mild gain of 0.26%
Bank vs ASX bank
Well, let's start off with the big dog, CBA. CBA shares kicked off July at a share price of $99.87. On 30 September, this bank closed at $104.33 a share. That puts CBA's gains for those 3 months at an impressive 4.47%.
Turning to Westpac, and we see that this ASX bank started the quarter at a share price of $25.81. By the end of September, Westpac shares closed at $26 on the dot. That's a far less impressive gain of 0.74%.
NAB shares seemed to tread a similar path to CBA. NAB (or JAB, as this bank likes to be known as these days) were trading at a price of $26.22 at the start of July. By the end of September, they had risen to $27.83. That's a gain of 6.14%.
Lastly, we have ANZ. ANZ shares were asking $28.15 each at the dawn of the new financial year. They ended up finishing up September at a price of… $28.15. No joke, the ANZ share price went absolutely nowhere quarter-to-quarter. You can't fault this bank for inconsistency at least.
So all of the major bank shares had a positive quarter, with the exception of ANZ. NAB seems to be the real banking winner of FY22 so far with its 6.14% gain, followed by CBA, Westpac and finally ANZ. It's interesting to note that 3 of the 4 banks outperformed the ASX 200 over the period.
Let's see how they go this quarter!