Macquarie Moving Forwards

Hey Guys, keen to hear other people's thoughts on holding Macquarie in the medium term.

No doubt in my mind that amongst the big banks on the ASX, it is the clear leader.

With that being said, following the most recent results announcement where they indicated difficulties exiting some existing renewable infrastructure assets, a number of their 'annuity style' businesses being revealed to be more cyclical and their desire to double down on mortgages and retail banking I'm seriously considering whether the business deserves to trade on its current multiple.

To me, Macquarie has always been the adventurous bank with the best ideas and been one to put capital behind them. In an environment where retail banking margins have never been worse due to extreme competition and where it was just revealed in NAB's half year results that 2 out of every 3 mortgages written were below cost of capital (i.e. written at a loss), it's astonishing to me that this is one of Macquarie's 'best ideas'. Retail banking is low returning and capital intensive and has already started to create a drag on their ROE; this drag will get bigger as their retail bank gets bigger depressing overall returns. It's also a space where every bank in the market now has a full feature digital mortgage where the last bastion of competition is price. Given this, the space is not likely to become more profitable in the future (in my view).

I'm left then asking myself, is this a business that has run out of good ideas? Is this a business that justifies it's current multiple over the other banks?

Keen to hear the thoughts of other holders as I re-consider my holding and whether it is kept in full, reduced, or exited entirely.