As we embark on the second quarter of FY22, it's a good time to look back and see how some of the major ASX 200 shares performed over the first quarter of the financial year.
So, let's check out how the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA) share price went over the period.
The first quarter of FY22 ran from 1 July to 30 September. Over this period, the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) was fairly lacklustre. The ASX 200 started July at 7,313 points and ended up at 7,332.2 points on 30 September. That translates into a lukewarm gain of roughly 0.26% for those 3 months.
So, how did the CBA share price stack up? CBA is the largest ASX 200 share by market capitalisation (and therefore weighting) at the present time, so whatever it does really impacts the broader market.
CBA shares started the new financial year off at a share price of $99.87. On Thursday last week, the CBA share price closed at $104.33 on the last day of the quarter. That puts CBA's quarterly gains at a robust 4.47%. That's more than 17 times what the ASX 200 delivered.
Not only that, but CBA also shelled out its most recent final dividend payment during the quarter, too. CBA shareholders received a fully franked dividend of $2 per share on 29 September.
That further boosts shareholder returns for CBA over this period. The bank's $6 billion share buyback program, which was announced in CBA's FY21 earnings report, would have helped as well.
Could CBA shares be a buy today?
With this impressive outperformance over the quarter just gone, many an investor might be wondering whether CBA shares are a buy today. Well, as my Fool colleague James covered late last month, one broker doesn't think so.
Morgan Stanley slapped an 'underweight' rating on CBA in September, with a 12-month share price target of $90. That implies a potential 12-month downside of roughly 13% on today's share price of $103.21 at the time of writing.
Morgan Stanley isn't wild on Commonwealth Bank right now. It sees the actions that financial regulators are taking to cool the housing market as deleterious for CBA, which is the largest housing lender in the country.
At the current CBA share price, this ASX bank has a market capitalisation of $183 billion, a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 21.86 and a dividend yield of 3.39%.
