What a month it has been for the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA) share price. It was only a little over two weeks ago that CBA shares were just under $180 a share, a level investors might have become used to seeing over 2025.
But, at the time of writing on Thursday afternoon, those same shares are under $160, sitting at $159.97, to be precise.
Investors evidently did not like what they saw when CBA released its latest quarterly report on Tuesday.
As we covered at the time, this report revealed CommBank enjoyed a 3% growth in its operating income, thanks to growth in deposits and lending. However, expenses were up by 4%, tempering that lift in income. Further, CBA also saw its net interest margin decline.
This report certainly took some of the shine off of CBA shares. The ASX 200 bank stock has plunged more than 8% since the report was released (yes, over just three trading days). This brings the CBA share price down a nasty 16% or so from the last record high of $192 a share that we saw back in June.
As the Commonwealth Bank is the largest stock on the ASX, and thus the largest position in every conventional ASX index fund, this loss hurts many investors (and almost everyone with a superannuation fund), not just those who own CBA shares directly.
However, there is something of a silver lining to this loss.
As CBA shares fall, the dividend rises
As an ASX bank, CBA has traditionally been a strong dividend payer. In years gone by, it wasn't uncommon for investors to enjoy at least a 4% fully franked yield from this company. But thanks to this bank's incredible run over the past two years or so, CBA's income credentials have taken a big hit.
That's through no fault of the bank itself. CBA has been delivering dividend increases like clockwork, increasing its annual payout every year since the COVID-ravaged 2020. Its last two dividends, worth $2.60 and $2.25 per share, respectively, were upped from the payments of $2.50 and $2.15 that preceded them.
However, dividend yields don't just derive from the raw dividends per share that a stock doles out. They are also filtered through the share price at which an investor buys them.
To illustrate, when CBA was at $192 per share, an investor paying that price would have locked in a dividend yield of just 2.53% (assuming the bank's dividends stay steady going forward, of course).
However, at today's pricing, CBA is trading on a much friendlier yield of 3.04%.
Again, assuming that CBA at least holds its dividends steady going forward (never a guarantee), an investor buying at today's lower prices will see a much better dividend yield than if they had bought at that $192 peak. As such, this drop in the CBA share price might have a silver lining for many ASX investors.
