Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA) shares closed in the red on Tuesday afternoon.
The bank shares fell around 0.4% for the day, ending at $170.49 a piece.
Thanks to a strong start to the year, the bank shares are up around 6% for the year to date, but they're still around 4% lower than 12 months ago.
For context, the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) is up around 1% year to date and roughly 1.5% higher than 12 months ago.
But brokers are pretty pessimistic about the outlook for CBA shares over the next 12 months. Market Index data shows that all brokers have a sell rating on the banking giant's shares. The average $123.25 target price implies a potential 28% downside at the time of writing.
It's not good news for CBA shares. But regardless of where the stock will be in 12 months' time, there are a few other reasons I think the ASX bank shares are a screaming buy right now.
Here are three of them.
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1. CBA has defensive qualities
CBA is huge in scale. The bank sits in second place on the ASX 200, behind only BHP Group Ltd (ASX: BHP) in terms of market capitalisation.
CBA is primarily a cyclical stock, but it has strong defensive qualities. Scarcity of quality stocks on the ASX also means investors tend to put major players, like CBA, on a pedestal. Its sheer scale often means investors generally consider it a safe haven when markets are unstable.
We've seen this play out throughout 2026. Regardless of the business fundamentals and analyst outlooks, many investors will always favour and buy into CBA shares purely because it is Australia's largest bank.
2. Consistent operational performance
Because CBA is a large-scale ASX bank stock with defensive qualities, its operational performance and earnings are mostly strong and consistent, even when markets are weaker.
CBA posted its half-year results in February, where it revealed a 6% increase in cash net profit to $5,445 million. The result was far better than the market expected and demonstrated core banking business growth.
The latest update from the bank was for the three months to 31 March 2026. It reported statutory net profit of $2.6 billion, while cash net profit was $2.7 billion – this was up 4% year on year, but down 1% on the quarterly average of the FY26 first half.
But the bank also reported growth in both loans and deposits. Annual growth to March 2026 saw business lending grow by 12.5%, household deposits grow by 9.1%, and home lending increase by 7.1%.
3. The bank pays a reliable passive income
CBA's huge scale and consistent operational performance have enabled the bank to generate a long history of paying regular fully-franked dividends every year, dating back to 1992.
And it pays its shareholders a good dividend yield, too. Its latest payment was a fully-franked interim dividend of $2.35 per share in late-March.
Looking ahead, the bank is forecast to pay a total dividend of $5.15 per share to shareholders in FY26. It is then expected to pay around $5.45 per share in FY27.
At the time of writing, this translates to a forward dividend yield of around 3% for FY26. For FY27, the forward dividend yield is about 3.2%.
