The Woodside Energy Group Ltd (ASX: WDS) share price has become one of the more popular investments on the ASX, especially for dividend investors. Thanks to the merger with BHP Group Ltd (ASX: BHP)'s petroleum division in 2021, Woodside is now one of the top ten companies on the ASX in terms of size.
Record commodity prices over the past few years saw Woodside shares pay out a veritable fortune in dividend income, including last year as well. Even today, this ASX 200 energy giant has a trailing dividend yield of almost 11%. That comes fully franked too.
But May was a rather tough month for ASX shares and the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) as a whole. The ASX 200 started out May at 7,309.2 points but finished up the month on Wednesday at just 7,091.3 points. That translates to a loss of 3%.
So how did Woodside shares do?
The Woodside share price smashed the ASX 200 over May
Well, Woodside started last month with a share price of $33.68. The energy share had a bit of a volatile month, falling as low as $32.63 in early May, as well as rising as high as $35.24 a share towards the end of the month (that's a difference worth 8%). But by Wednesday afternoon, the Woodside share price had closed at $34.30.
That means Woodside shares officially rose by 1.84% over the month of May. That works out to be a 4.84% improvement over the performance of the broader ASX 200 index, as you can see below:
There wasn't any major news out of Woodside itself over the month.
However, oil prices did have a bit of a wild time in May, which could explain the volatility we did see in Woodside shares. Early last month, WTI crude was trading as low as US$68.50 a barrel. But the end of the month saw prices rise as high as US$74.30 a barrel, before slumping back to around US$70 by 31 May.
Since the oil price is probably the single largest factor in Woodside's profitability, these movements probably explain the volatility we saw in the Woodside share price itself.
Woodside shares remain down by 2.2% in 2023 so far but remain up by around 8.65% over the past 12 months.
