NOT TOO FOUL. Macquarie gave investors some good news on Tuesday. Australia’s largest investment bank unveiled a relatively decent set of quarterly earnings thanks to commodities trading and dealmaking. Chief Executive Shermara Wikramanayake also said that its fiscal-year results to the end of March are likely to be only “slightly” lower than for the previous year – just three months after feeling Covid-affected markets were too murky to provide any outlook. The resulting 7% jump in Macquarie’s share price still leaves the bank trailing the recent market surges of local commercial banks like ANZ, plus Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. The latter two are up more than 40% over the past six months, compared with 13% for Wikramanayake’s firm. On the other hand Macquarie trades at almost 2.3 times book value, more than double Goldman’s multiple and a full turn better than Morgan Stanley’s. There’s no need to rally when you’re already on top of the heap.(By Antony Currie)