Let's get this out of the way first. The S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO), well, it had a shocker today. At the closing bell, the ASX 200 was down by a very depressing 2.99%. That's the largest one-day fall we have seen in quite a while. That's never a good sign for the ASX bank shares.
The big four ASX banks make up four of the six largest companies on the ASX 200 Index by market capitalisation. Between them, they account for almost 20% of the entire ASX 200's weighting. So the ASX 200 isn't going to go down by a whopping near-3% without dragging the banks down with it.
The largest of the big four, Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA), ended the day down by 2.05%.
National Australia Bank Ltd (ASX: NAB)? It lost 2.49%. Westpac Banking Corp (ASX: WBC) was down a meaty 2.36%.
But it's the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd (ASX: ANZ) share price that has copped it the worst today. ANZ shares fell by a very horrible 3.44% and at the close were going for $26.68 a share.
ANZ share price singled out for punishment today. But why?
ANZ shares have arguably not been on the right side of ASX investors for a while now.
NAB and CBA shares have both given investors returns exceeding 15% over the past 12 months. Yet ANZ is up just 0.1% over the same period. And the bank was even technically kicked out of the 'big four', albeit briefly, back in November last year. That was when the market cap of Macquarie Group Ltd (ASX: MQG) exceeded ANZ's, making it the fifth-largest ASX bank for a time.
Earlier this week, my Fool colleague Tony looked at some of the reasons why ANZ hasn't seemed to be the pick of the ASX bank share bunch for a few years now. The bank's falling share of the owner-occupied housing market may be to blame. That's due perhaps to processing issues it has recently had with writing mortgages.
But investors don't seem to be in a forgiving mood today.
This ASX 200 big four bank has a market capitalisation of $74.97 billion, with a dividend yield of 5.33%.
