The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA) share price has been a solid performer for shareholders over the long term and short term, as the chart below shows.
CBA is a highly-followed business in Australia as it's the largest bank and one of the largest companies in Australia. It plays an important part in the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) too.
Let's take a look at how CBA has performed in the past six months. Of course, past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.
Image source: Getty Images
Good CBA share price performance
In the last six months, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia share price has risen by 14%. In the same time period, the ASX 200 dropped 0.3%, so CBA has outperformed significantly.
Of course, a return is decided by the ending price and the starting point. It started the six-month period at around $150, which was a relative low point of the past 12 months. While it's up 14% in the last six months, it's actually slightly down in the past year.
That means a $10,000 investment from six months ago is now worth $11,
What drove the ASX bank share?
In the short term, the CBA share price is affected by daily news events, such as developments in the Middle East. Changes in interest rates can also affect the share price, depending on investors' views of its potential profitability.
But, in the longer-term it's the ASX bank share's profitability that will drive performance. The latest update from the bank was for the three months to 31 March 2026.
In that update, CBA reported cash net profit of around $2.7 billion, up 4% year over year. It also represented 1% growth compared to the quarterly average from the first half of FY26. For the period, CBA said operating income was flat, with benefits from lending and deposit volume growth.
Year over year, CBA's business lending grew 12.5%, household deposits grew 9.1% and home lending increased 7.1%.
Excluding restructuring and notable items, the operating expenses grew by 1%, primarily due to higher cloud computing volumes, software licensing and investment in AI capabilities.
One of the key negatives for the business was the loan impairment expense of $316 million, with higher collective provisions, reflecting heightened geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainty. But it said the underlying portfolio credit remained solid.
Is the CBA share price a buy today?
Analysts certainly don't seem to think this is a good time to invest. According to CMC Invest, there have been seven ratings on the business in the last three months, with all of those being a sell.
Sadly, the average price target is $120.51, suggesting a possible decline of around 30% from where it is today.
There could be plenty of better opportunities out there.
