Game on! BHP retakes biggest ASX stock crown as CBA shares sink

The battle of the top ASX titans continues, with BHP edging out CBA to win back the crown.

Bernd Struben

Author bio Bernd Struben earned his BA in economics from the University of Michigan in 1991, with post-graduate studies in environmental economics at the University of Connecticut. Over the years he’s written about and analysed the tourism industry in the Caribbean; Europe’s commercial real estate markets; and, since moving to Australia in 2010, global and Aussie share markets. Bernd studies geopolitical and macroeconomic trends, alongside sector and company specific data, to gauge what he believes could be tomorrow's best investments. In his free time, you might find Bernd at the beach with his family or working on his next science fiction novel. Areas of expertise Australian and global share markets Macroeconomic and geopolitical trends Real estate Education Economics, University of Michigan Favorite investment quote "The four most dangerous words in investing are: 'This time it's different." — Sir John Templeton

Published February 27, 2:41 pm AEDT

It's a tight race at the moment, but Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA) shares have handed back the crown of biggest ASX stock to BHP Group Ltd (ASX: BHP).

In afternoon trade on Friday, the BHP share price is down 0.5% at $57.49. That gives the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) mining giant a market cap of $292 billion.

But with CBA shares down a sharp 2.2% at this same time, trading for $173.38 apiece, the big four bank's market cap has fallen to $290.4 billion.

graphic image of a crown dropping on its side and shattering — Image source: Getty Images

Battle of the ASX titans

It was only on 11 February that CommBank unseated BHP to again become the biggest ASX stock by market cap.

And BHP had only just reclaimed that title on 27 January. Before that, CBA had a lengthy run of around a year and a half as top dog on the exchange.

But the past two weeks have seen investors steadily bid up the Aussie mining giant while gradually bidding down Australia's biggest bank.

Indeed, since market close on 12 February, CBA shares are down 3.1%, while BHP shares have gained 10.4% over this time.

What's been moving BHP and CBA shares?

BHP and CBA both reported their half-year earnings results (H1 FY 2026) this month. And both ASX 200 stocks enjoyed a big share price boost on the day those results were reported.

CBA shares closed up 6.8% on 11 February, following the bank's half-year results release. And shares gained another 5.4% the following day.

Investors were piling into the ASX 200 bank stock after CBA beat consensus estimates by delivering a cash net profit after tax (NPAT) of $5.45 billion, up 6% from H1 FY 2025.

And the big four bank drew the interest of passive income investors when management declared a fully-franked interim dividend of $2.35 per share. That was up 4% from the interim dividend payout in FY 2025.

But following those two days of outsized gains, CBA shares just couldn't keep pace with investors' resurgent interest in BHP.

The ASX 200 miner reported its half-year earnings results on 17 February.

BHP shares closed up 4.7% on the day, with the company reporting an 11% year-on-year increase in revenue to US$27.90 billion. And on the bottom line, BHP achieved a 22% increase in underlying profit to $6.20 billion.

With profits up, management increased the fully-franked interim dividend by 30.2% to AU$1.03 per share.

The BHP share price is up 43.9% in a year. CBA shares are up 11.1% over this same period.

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