Macquarie is the king of making a buck in tough markets, can it continue under new CEO Greg Ward?

Macquarie Group (MQG) has spent the better part of three decades making its best money precisely when everyone else is struggling. The GFC, the pandemic, now a stretch of extraordinary commodity and energy market volatility – each time, it’s been the same playbook: steady, annuity-style income from asset management and banking providing the ballast, while the trading and capital markets arms capture the upside when volatility spikes.

It's a formula that has taken Macquarie from a domestic Australian investment bank into a genuinely global institution, and turned the stock into an Aussie investor favourite in the process.

This week, the playbook was back on display. At its Annual General Meeting (AGM) on 23 July, management described 1Q27 trading conditions as "satisfactory" – hardly a rousing endorsement – but the divisional detail underneath told a punchier story, led once again by the commodities business riding elevated volatility in gas and power markets.

Macquarie Group (MQG) share price chart

The other headline was leadership. Shemara Wikramanayake, CEO since 2018, is retiring, handing the reins to Greg Ward, currently head of Banking and Financial Services, effective November. The update lands with the stock already at fresh record highs, up roughly a quarter this year, and with investors asking how much further the run can go.

We'll walk through what the quarterly numbers revealed division by division, how brokers responded to both the earnings and the leadership handover, and finish with what's worth watching as the record-breaking run heads into its next test.

‘Satisfactory’ – commodities blowout

Commodities and Global Markets (CGM) was the standout, with profit contribution "substantially up" on the prior corresponding period. The driver was persistent offshore energy volatility, with American gas and power trading – a hangover from a US cold snap in January – doing much of the work.

Banking and Financial Services (BFS) also grew profit contribution year-on-year, with deposits up 4% quarter-on-quarter to A$223.3 billion and both loans and deposits logging faster than system growth. Macquarie Capital (MacCap) profit contribution rose too, as higher investment-related and brokerage income – including a role on the SpaceX IPO – outweighed lower advisory fees against a strong prior comparative. Its Private Credit book held broadly steady at A$27.2 billion.

Macquarie Asset Management (MAM) was the outlier. Assets under management climbed 4% quarter-on-quarter to A$748 billion, boosted by the completed acquisition of European CLO manager Spire Management, but profit contribution actually declined following the divestment of the group's public investments book.

FY27 guidance was largely reiterated, bar one tweak: banking volume growth is now "subject to market conditions and customer activity," a caveat several analysts linked to the Budget's dampening effect on investor mortgage demand.

The changing of the guard, and why the analysts like it

Wikramanayake departs having delivered a record FY26, with analysts at UBS noting that she leaves the business "at a high point" with "solid underlying operational momentum" behind it. Ward's promotion means Ben Perham steps up to run BFS – a move UBS also views positively, given loan and deposit growth already running above-system under his stewardship.

The broader analyst community’s read on the succession was uniformly constructive. CLSA's Ed Henning offered that the uncertainty overhang is removed, rating Macquarie a strong earnings upgrade candidate and keeping his Outperform rating and A$272.40 target. JPMorgan's Andrew Triggs lifted his target to A$275.00 from A$265.00, arguing the fast start in commodities lowers the odds Macquarie falls short of its own FY27 guidance and now sees earnings risk for the year skewed to the upside. Morgan Stanley's Richard Wiles raised his target to A$273.00 from A$263.00, pointing to surplus capital building ahead of expectations. Jefferies' Andrew Lyons went furthest on price, to A$284.03 from A$253.73, though he flagged the commodities tailwind as "likely to plateau eventually."

UBS struck a more cautious note, holding Neutral with an A$250 target. It estimates Macquarie is running at roughly A$0.9 billion of quarterly profit – well up on a weak year-ago quarter but behind last quarter's record print – against a Visible Alpha consensus of A$4.9 billion for FY27, which UBS sits 6% below. Its concern is the mix: CGM alone drives around 40% of group earnings, and at 19.2 times earnings versus a 14 times long-run average, there's little room for that concentration to disappoint.

And arguably, that’s the challenge for investors: is Macquarie, just for now, a one-trick pony on the back of global geopolitical events that are unlikely to be repeated? When you’re done chuckling about the “unlikely to be repeated” statement, it's fair to say that investors must make at least some leap of faith as to whether the bumper conditions in CGM are sustainable.

Macquarie Group Broker Consensus Summary 24 July 2026. Source: Market Index Broker Consensus. To obtain a stock’s Broker Consensus Rating, we assign a value of +1 to any rating better than HOLD / NEUTRAL / MARKETWEIGHT, a value of 0 for any rating equivalent to HOLD / NEUTRAL / MARKETWEIGHT, and a value of -1 to any rating worse than HOLD / NEUTRAL / MARKETWEIGHT. We then take the average of all assigned rating values and assign a Broker Consensus Rating of BUY to values greater than +0.5, a rating of HOLD for values between -0.5 and +0.5, and a rating of SELL for values less than -0.5. The Broker Consensus Target is simply the average of the target prices we have on file for each broker. Typically, brokers define their target prices as a 12-month forecast. Each target price is based on fundamental valuation assumptions. Upside/Downside data based on MQG closing price 23 July 2026.

Our Broker Consensus database shows coverage on Macquarie from eight major brokers, with seven of them updating their views in the last 24 hours. The general reaction to this week’s update was constructive without being dramatic – the average price target crept up just 2.8% to A$263.15, implying 3.7% upside from yesterday's close. The Broker Consensus Rating was unchanged at 0.63, implying a consensus buy among the brokers surveyed.

Conclusion: the next test for the record run

A single quarter of gas and power trading was enough to turn a "satisfactory" update into a genuinely strong one – and that same commodities engine, worth close to 40% of group earnings, is both the best argument for owning Macquarie and the biggest risk to the thesis. The majority of analysts are betting the diversification story, and Ward's succession, will keep the premium multiple intact.

There are risks, however: the commodities tailwind could fade and banking growth now carries an explicit caveat tied to a softer housing market. Against that, surplus capital is building, private markets assets keep growing, and the leadership transition has removed a source of uncertainty that had weighed on sentiment for months.

Ward officially takes over in November, and Macquarie's 1H27 result later in the year should show whether the usual 45/55 first-half vs second-half earnings split holds and whether the current commodities strength has carried through. As always with Macquarie, the share price will likely be the first and clearest sign of whether the market still believes the story.

References: This article draws on institutional research from Citi and UBS, and broker commentary and consensus data compiled by FactSet StreetAccount, including CLSA, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley and Jefferies (all July 2026).