Several reasons, I think.
- There'd been a fair bit of talk in the Aussie media about ANZ being the best of the breed at present and that it "might surprise on the up-side" with its profit announcement. So, another case of expectations getting ahead of reality as shown by the strong shareprice over recent weeks.
- Net interest margin was down slightly, again. That's been the trend for a while now and is hard to budge while rates remain low.
- The profit benefitted from lower provisions and better bad debt recoveries - not seen as a particularly reliable source of future contributions to profit.
Overall verdict, steady but not spectacular.