The phrase 'highest-ever share price' might not feel too comfortable for shareholders of AGL Energy Limited (ASX: AGL). After all, it's been a long time since this ASX blue chip and old stalwart of the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) has seen an all-time high.
At the closing bell today, the AGL share price is sitting at $8.58, up 2.02% for the day. To be fair, that is a substantial improvement from the share price of $5.10 that we saw only a few months ago. That was a new 52-week low for AGL at the time. But it was also the lowest share price AGL had traded at for at least two decades.
So at today's numbers, AGL shares are now up a healthy 39% or so in 2022 so far. Saying that, the company is still down more than 11% over the past 12 months, and almost 50% from the lows we saw back in the COVID crash of 2020.
But let's now take a look at AGL's highest-ever share price.
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When did AGL shares last hit a record high price?
AGL shares last peaked back in 2017. Before that, the company had been on an epic run, rising more than 50% between April 2016 and April 2017. Mid-April 2017 saw this company's last share price peak. AGL hit an intra-day high of $28.47 on 11 April, its current all-time high. Its highest-ever closing share price came on the day prior, 10 April. That saw AGL shares close at $28.44 each.
Unfortunately, it has been downhill for the company ever since. At today's prices, AGL shares remain down 70% from that high watermark. Of course, there have been some substantial dividends paid out since then that would blunt these losses somewhat. But not nearly enough to result in these losses being erased. And definitely not enough to make AGL a market-beating investment since then.
Now AGL is about to turn a new leaf with the planned upcoming demerger of its retailing and generation businesses, no doubt AGL investors will be hoping the next five years prove more lucrative than the past five have been. But, as always, we shall have to wait and see.
At the current AGL share price, this ASX 200 share has a market capitalisation of $5.66 billion.
