The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA) share price has soared more than 30% in the last 12 months. Can the ASX bank share deliver further gains in the next year, or is this as good as it gets?
The biggest bank recently reported its FY25 half-year results to investors.
The report for the six months to December 2024 perhaps justified some investor confidence in the share price's rise in the previous months. CBA reported a cash net profit of $5.1 billion (up 2% year over year), a statutory net profit of $5.1 billion (up 6%), and a dividend hike of 5% to $2.25 per share.
Those were the headlines, but there were a couple of pleasing underlying statistics as well.
The loan impairment expense decreased by 23% year over year to $320 million, and the underlying net interest margin (NIM) – the profit it's making on lending – improved by 2 basis points to 2.08%. Despite the pressures of competition and high interest rates, the bank was able to deliver improvements in two of its key metrics.
But, where could the CBA share price go from here?
Broker forecasts for the CBA share price
A price target is where a broker thinks the share price will be in 12 months from the time of the investment call. These are just forecasts by analysts, they are not guaranteed to come true.
The broker UBS currently rates CBA shares as a sell, with a price target of $115. That implies a possible fall of close to 25% in the next year.
UBS suggested that at the current valuation level, there is "better value and more upside can be found elsewhere" in the ASX financial share sector.
That's because CBA is only expected to grow its earnings at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of between 2.5% and 3% over the next three years. In that scenario, UBS suggests CBA is "unlikely to grow into its multiple", with it dependent on underlying earnings, net tangible asset (NTA) growth, and capital returns.
According to UBS' forecasts, CBA shares are trading at 25x FY25's estimated earnings despite UBS increasing its cash earnings per share (EPS) estimate for FY25 by 1%.
It also increased its cash EPS estimate by 2.4% and 2.6% for FY26 and FY27, respectively. The broker also expects the NIM and operating expenditure to be a little higher than it was originally forecasting. Costs are expected to be higher due to wage inflation and technology spending.
