The Macquarie Group Ltd (ASX: MQG) share price performed well compared to the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) today.
Macquarie shares went up 1.6% while the ASX 200 lost 0.2%.
It wasn't the only large financial business that did well.
Let's look at the performance of the big four ASX bank shares:
- The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA) share price went up 0.9%
- The National Australia Bank Ltd (ASX: NAB) share price rose 0.8%
- The Westpac Banking Corp (ASX: WBC) share price climbed 0.6%
- The Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd (ASX: ANZ) share price went up 0.5%.
As you can see, the Macquarie share price went up materially more than the other major banks' shares.
What happened?
The ASX share market sees changing prices every day, depending on market sentiment and which buyers and sellers are transacting.
Macquarie shares are steadily regaining some of the lost ground from prior market volatility when there was a lot of fear surrounding higher interest rates.
The global investment bank has seen some positive analysis from UBS analyst John Storey, who looked at July APRA data, according to reporting by The Australian.
He said that Macquarie's mortgage growth is "steaming ahead" even though there could soon be a slowdown in lending. The Macquarie share price could be helped by the growth of Macquarie Bank.
Macquarie was reportedly the leader when it came to net new mortgage lending for the second consecutive month, but overall mortgage growth "slowed sharply" to 0.3%. The total mortgage rise across the system was $6 billion, which was the lowest since the pandemic.
It was noted that "overall real loan growth remained positive but there were signs of an imminent slowdown, with other personal and credit card lending down 2.1% and 1.2%". Total gross loans and advances increased by 0.5%, while business lending grew by 0.6%.
How is Macquarie performing in this economic environment?
The latest update that investors had was in late July when Macquarie described how the first quarter of FY23 went at its annual general meeting.
Macquarie revealed "favourable trading conditions" with the first quarter operating profit up year over year, although trading conditions did "soften" during the quarter. Profit can be a key influencer on the Macquarie share price.
The investment bank's annuity-style businesses – Macquarie Asset Management (MAM) and banking and financial services – saw their net profit rise "significantly" year over year, primarily due to income from the green-focused investment bank Green Investment Group (GIG) asset sales in MAM. The contribution from the banking and financial services division was "broadly in line" year over year.
Macquarie's market-facing businesses, Commodities and Global Markets (CGM) and Macquarie Capital saw a combined net profit that was "up slightly", primarily due to "strong results" across the commodities platform and higher investment-related income in Macquarie Capital.
Macquarie share price snapshot
Over the past two months, Macquarie shares have gone up by around 8%.
