Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA) shares once more raced ahead of the benchmark this week.
On Friday 9 November, shares in the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) bank stock closed trading for $149.32 each. This past Friday, 15 November, shares ended the day trading for $155.13 apiece.
This saw CBA shares end the week up 3.89%, comparing very favourably to the 0.12% weekly loss posted by the ASX 200.
As you can see in the chart below, CommBank stock is up a remarkable 52% in a year. And this doesn't even include the two fully franked dividends the bank paid eligible shareholders over the 12 months.
The march higher over the week also marked a major milestone for Australia's biggest bank. This came as it inched closer to joining the exclusive club of the world's top-10 banks in terms of market cap.
With 1.67 billion CBA shares outstanding, the bank now commands a market cap of $259.62 billion.
CBA shares notch new records
As The Australian noted on Thursday, the strong run for CBA shares saw its market cap overtake major global bank HSBC this week.
This put CommBank at number 11 on the list of global banks in terms of its market valuation.
While numerous analysts have been raising concerns about the significant premium investors pay to buy CBA shares relative to the bank's Aussie rivals, CBA CEO Matt Comyn shrugged off those worries.
"We are very focused on our strategy, serving our customers, consistent execution, and controlling the things that we can, which is obviously all of those, and delivering that consistently over the long period," Comyn told The Australian.
On the cost-cutting front, Comyn said that despite ongoing cost pressure from slowing but lingering inflation, now is not the right time to scale back capex investments.
According to Comyn:
We certainly continue to be focused on managing those [costs] appropriately, and we want to keep investing for the long term, which we think is really important, strategically and being able to make sure we're delivering the best experience for our customers.
What's the latest out of CommBank?
CommBank reported its quarterly results on Wednesday.
Although CBA shares closed down 0.4% on the day, that was still a better performance than the 0.8% loss posted by the ASX 200 on Wednesday.
Highlights of the quarter included a 3.5% increase in operating income over the quarter and an unaudited cash net profit of some $2.5 billion. Quarterly profits were flat year on year.
Pleasingly, CBA achieved a 0.29% improvement in its Common Equity Tier 1 (CET1) ratio. That stood at 11.8% before the big four bank paid shareholders $4.2 billion in second-half dividends.
