Well, yesterday we got to see what is always one of the blockbuster reports from every earnings season: The latest report card from Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA) shares.
As the ASX's largest bank stock (and stock overall), CBA's earnings normally set the mood for the entire ASX during reporting season. And boy, was this week's report a doozy.
As we covered at the time, the bank reported a 7% rise in statutory net profit after tax to $10.13 billion for the full 2025 financial year, and a 4% bump in cash net profits after tax to $10.25 billion. Income investors would have been pleased with the 4% dividend hike, too. Commonwealth Bank will pay out a final dividend of $2.60 per share this year, up from $2.50 per share in 2024.
However, investors were not too happy with the set of numbers that CBA dropped yesterday. The CBA share price tanked 5.4% by market close, and has lost another 0.45% so far today to $168.42 (at the time of writing, anyway).
Despite this fall, the bank has still proven to be a winning investment of late. Even at today's more depressed pricing, investors are still sitting on a 9.6% gain in 2025 to date, as well as a 25.45% rise over the past 12 months.
So that's how the broader market viewed CBA's latest numbers. But today, let's check out what an expert investor thought of them.
Analysts at Macquarie have just released some of their thoughts on CBA's report. And it makes for some interesting reading.
Image source: Getty Images
Macquarie still rates CBA shares as a sell
Importantly, Macquarie found that "we still struggle to fault CBA's execution", noting that CBA "remained focused on longer-term growth and… investing more in AI capabilities".
The analysts also highlighted CBA's steps to stay ahead of the fierce competition in the Australian banking sector:
While peers are distracted by legacy tech issues, CBA has further invested in developing AI capabilities. While the benefits from these investments will potentially take "many years" to realise, we believe CBA's approach will help ensure its continued tech advantage. Albeit, we do also see a heightened risk of capitalised software write-offs.
Saying all of that, Macquarie is still unable to square the circle when it comes to valuation. It told clients that "we continue to see the current valuation at ~3.5x [price-to-book] and ~28x [price-to-earnings] as stretched".
It concluded with this:
While we believe CBA is still a better franchise than peers, with minimal earnings growth forecasted over the next three years and further downside risk to consensus, we believe valuation of ~28x FY26E P/E and ~3.5x P/B remains detached from fundamentals.
As such, Macquarie maintained an 'underperform' rating on CBA shares, as well as its 12-month share price target of just $105. If the bank did fall to that pricing, it would see investors lose a nasty 37.6% from where the bank sits today.
Let's see what happens next for CBA shares.
