The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA) share price has amassed a reputation as a winner on the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO). It's hard not to do so when CBA shares have outstripped the performance of all of your ASX banking peers in recent years. Indeed, the CBA share price is the only one out of the ASX 200 big four banks to have enjoyed a new all-time high in the past 7 years or so.
But CBA's march has certainly slowed in recent months. At the time of writing, CBA shares are sitting at $101.15. That's up a healthy 1.78% so far today. Alas, that's pretty much the same level they were commanding in May last year, a good 10 months ago. And we haven't seen the CBA share price get close to its all-time high of $110.19 that we saw late last year for a while now.
That represents quite a change of pace for CBA shares. When it last hit an all-time high in November last year, CBA had spent the preceding 12 months rising by more than 57%. That high watermark also represented a 20% premium to where CBA shares were just before the COVID-induced crash of 2020. And back then, CBA was also at what was then an all-time high.
So now that CBA has been stuck in the mud for a few months, could this be a time to pick up its shares today? Is the CBA share price a buy right now?
Buy or sell for the CBA share price? Here's what the brokers say
Broker opinion remains mixed on the CBA share price. Investment bank Goldman Sachs is one such broker who isn't wild about CBA shares and where they stand today. Upon news that the Bank would be offloading half of its share in China's Bank of Hangzhou earlier this month, Goldman retained its sell rating on CBA with a 12-month share price target of $82.94.
This broker reckons there is still too much of a premium priced into CBA shares. It points out that the bank trades expensively compared to its peers. If CBA indeed descends to this pricing level over the next year, investors would be out of pocket by close to 20%.
But fellow broker Bell Potter disagrees. As my Fool colleague James covered earlier this month, Bell Potter is still buy rated on the CBA share price, with a 12-month share price target of $108. That implies an upside of roughly 7% going forward. This broker is more bullish on CBA's overall metrics, including return on equity and cash flows.
So one of these brokers is going to be wrong over the coming year. Unfortunately, we don't know which one yet. But investors will have a clear favourite, I'd wager.
At the current CBA share price, this ASX 200 banking share has a market capitalisation of $172.17 billion, with a dividend yield of 3.72%.
