SYDNEY, March 23, 2026, 06:24 AEDT
Macquarie Group (MQG.AX) heads into Monday’s Sydney session on the back foot after closing Friday at A$194.99, down 0.56%. The stock is about 12% below the A$221.32 intraday high it touched after February’s trading update. 1
The move matters because Macquarie spans retail banking, asset management, commodities trading and advisory, so higher borrowing costs at home and shakier risk appetite abroad can hit several earnings lines at once. The next hard catalyst is May 8, when the group is scheduled to report full-year results. 2
The near-term backdrop hardened last week. The Reserve Bank of Australia lifted the cash rate by 25 basis points, or a quarter percentage point, to 4.10%, and Macquarie Bank said it would raise its variable home-loan reference rates and transaction and savings rates by the same amount from April 2. 3
Friday’s drop was milder than for some domestic peers. Commonwealth Bank fell 0.97% and National Australia Bank dropped 2.25%, while the S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.82%, pointing to a broader retreat in financials rather than a Macquarie-specific slide. 4
The market, though, is no longer trading off February’s optimism. When Macquarie updated investors on Feb. 10, Chief Executive Shemara Wikramanayake said conditions were “satisfactory” in the third quarter and Reuters reported the shares jumped as much as 4% that day, even as the company flagged lower margins in Banking and Financial Services because of competition and portfolio mix. 5
Deal risk has also crept up. Reuters reported on March 18 that Macquarie withdrew from bidding for a Kuwait oil pipeline stake worth up to $7 billion because of the conflict and uncertain outlook, though Martin Bradley, the firm’s head of infrastructure for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said Macquarie remained “committed to the region.” 6
Global markets offered little relief at the end of the week. Reuters reported on Friday that stocks fell and bond yields jumped as the Iran war fed fears of firmer inflation and a more hawkish path for central banks, a mix that can weigh on trading, financing and infrastructure deal execution. 7
The risk for investors is that borrowing costs bite harder at home just as the Gulf conflict keeps financing markets and infrastructure transactions cautious abroad. For Macquarie, that would squeeze one side of the business while raising execution risk on another. 6
For now, the stock is sitting at the bottom of Friday’s A$194.99 to A$197.69 range and well below its 52-week high of A$231.83. 8
