Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA) shares sit at the centre of Australian investing.
It is the nation's largest bank, a core holding in countless superannuation portfolios, and a share that many Australians hold for decades rather than years. When CBA moves, a lot of household wealth moves with it.
So how has it actually performed in 2025?
Let's rewind to the very start of the year and see what would have happened if an investor put $10,000 into CBA shares and then did absolutely nothing.
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$10,000 invested at the start of 2025
At the end of 2024, CBA shares were trading at $153.25.
With $10,000, an investor could have bought 65 shares for a total cost of $9,951.25, leaving a small amount of cash on the sidelines for a nice dinner.
For a while, that decision looked very smart.
CBA shares surged in the first half of the year and reached an all-time high of $192.00 in late June. At that peak, those 65 shares would have been worth $12,480, representing a paper gain of more than $2,500 in just six months.
However, the second half of 2025 told a different story.
Concerns about its valuation, slowing growth, and how much further Australia's biggest bank could realistically run began to weigh on the share price. At the time of writing, CBA shares had fallen back to $161.73, which is roughly 16% below their June high.
At that price, the original 65 shares are now worth $10,512.45. This is around $550 higher than the initial investment.
The dividends
Of course, focusing only on the share price misses a big part of the CBA story.
Over the period, the bank paid two fully franked dividends to shareholders. They received a $2.25 per share interim dividend in March, followed by a $2.60 per share final dividend in September.
Across 65 shares, that equates to total dividend income of $315.25, which means that the total value of this investment would now be $10,827.70.
That's a total return of almost 9% for the year.
While this is not a spectacular outcome, especially given how strong the first half of the year looked, it is better than what some blue chips delivered this year.
It is also a return that many shareholders would be pleased with given how most analysts were predicting sharp declines from CBA shares this year.
