It wasn't a good financial year to own Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA) shares, as it turns out. FY2022 saw the CBA share price lose a painful 9.5% of its value. Not even CBA's generous dividends were enough to save investors from an overall loss with this ASX bank last financial year.
Perhaps the only comfort investors can cling to is the fact that the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) fared even worse. The ASX 200 lost 10.19% of its value over FY2022 in what was a rather poor 12 months for most ASX shares.
But it wasn't like the other ASX bank shares fared much better. As we covered yesterday, even with a 9.5% loss, CBA ended up being the third-best ASX bank share performer over FY2022. It beat out Westpac Banking Corp (ASX: WBC) and Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd (ASX: ANZ) and only lost to National Australia Bank Ltd (ASX: NAB) and Macquarie Group Ltd (ASX: MQG).
So now that the CBA share price has this miserly year under its belt, what might FY2023 hold in store for CBA shares?
Are CBA shares an FY23 buy or sell?
Well, if we take a look at what the brokers are saying, CBA investors could be in for another tough financial year.
As my Fool colleague Tristan covered last week, there are currently three ASX brokers who are bearish on CBA shares right now.
Broker Citi currently rates CBA shares as a sell. This ASX broker reckons the share price premium that CBA shares currently command puts the bank at risk of further share price falls. It currently has a 12-month share price target of $90.75, which is around 3% below where the shares are today.
But it gets even worse if we look at what the other brokers are expecting. Morgan Stanley and Macquarie currently have share price targets of $79 and $78 respectively. Both came with underperform and underweight ratings as well.
Both of these brokers are pencilling in higher loan losses for CBA's books, as well as sluggish credit growth going forward. Morgan Stanley is also worried that rising costs due to interest rate rises will hamper the bank's bottom line.
So all in all, not exactly a rosy outlook on CBA from three of the ASX's biggest brokers. No doubt shareholders will be hoping these brokers are too pessimistic on CBA shares for FY2023. But we shall have to wait and see what the new financial year brings us.
At the current CBA share price, this ASX 200 bank has a market capitalisation of $159.03 billion, with a dividend yield of 4.01%.
