As a major big four ASX bank share (or big 5 these days), the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd (ASX: ANZ) share price has always been one of the most watched metrics on the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO). As a top 10 ASX 200 share, ANZ shares have a fairly large influence over the entire ASX 200.
So let's take a journey through ANZ's share price history. It's quite telling to look at a blue chip share like ANZ through this lens, as we can really see how much it lives up to this reputation as a strong, stable and relatively safe investment.
So here's how the ANZ share price looks over the past 10 years:
So as you can see, it's far from 'up and to the right' for ANZ shares. At the last ANZ share price of $27.27, investors would have bought those same shares for that same price way back in February 2013. Or back in October 2006 for that matter. That's 15 years of doing a whole lot of not much.
ANZ share price: stuck in the mud?
Of course, there was ANZ's meaty and (mostly) fully franked dividends that would have helped ease the pain. But it's safe to say that ANZ has not been a market-beating investment for most long-term shareholders over the past 15 years.
Of course, we've seen highs and lows far over and under that price over this period too. ANZ's last all-time high was hit back in April 2015. Believe it or not, that's when ANZ shares got close to $37 each. As it stands today (6½ years later), ANZ remains around 25% off of those highs. Just over the past 5 years alone, the ANZ share price remains down by 4.18%.
But then again, ANZ is also today a good 80% or so above the lows that we saw during the COVID crash last year. That was when ANZ got to under $15 a share. So it hasn't been all bad news for shareholders. In more recent times, the picture has been a lot brighter too. ANZ is up 18.4% year to date in 2021 alone, and is also up 17.3% over the past 12 months.
Sometimes, perspective is everything!
At the current ANZ share price of $27.27, this ASX banking share has a market capitalisation of $76.88 billion, with a dividend yield of 5.21%.
