It's been a fairly pleasant day for the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) and many ASX 200 shares this Wednesday. At the time of writing, the ASX 200 has advanced 0.33% to just under 8,840 points. But let's talk about what's happening with the Macquarie Group Ltd (ASX: MQG) share price.
Macquarie shares are also enjoying some time in the sun this hump day. The diversified financial stock closed at $253.04 yesterday evening but opened at $255.22 this morning. Just after midday, Macquarie went even higher, blowing past $257 to top out at $257.29. That's a new all-time record high for the Macquarie share price.
At present, the financial stock has cooled off a little, but is still trading at $255.80 a share, up a comfortable 1.12% for the session thus far.
This gain puts Macquarie shares up a sizeable 25.6% year to date in 2026, and up 14% over the past 12 months. Investors who held back in March when the company fell below $200 a share during the initial sell-off following the onset of the US-Iran War have certainly been rewarded.
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Why is the Macquarie share price hitting new record highs today?
There's no smoking gun for today's new record high for the Macquarie share price. The company hasn't made any significant announcements for a while.
What we can say is that sentiment on Macquarie shares has been improving since the company's latest earnings were released back in May. As we covered at the time, these earnings were impressive, with Macquarie reporting higher return on equity, a 30% rise in net profits after tax to $4.85 billion, and a 30% boost to earnings per share (EPS) to $12.77. The company also raised its final dividend by a healthy 7.7% to $4.20 per share.
Macquarie has a large and immensely profitable investment banking division. Perhaps investors are betting that the company will continue to prosper amid the heightened volatility this year has brought.
It's also worth noting that Macquarie shares are being looked upon favourably by brokers. As my Fool colleague Samantha Menzies looked at the end of last month, a "majority of brokers have a strong buy rating on Macquarie Group shares".
Let's see if this ASX 200 financial stock can keep breaking its records.
At the current Macquarie share price, the company trades on a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 20.2 and a dividend yield of 2.73%.
