It's been the most heavily traded stock by both institutional and 'mum and dad" investors on the S&P/ ASX200 today, with 1.5 million Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA) shares worth $108 million changing hands.
The stock is also up 1% today following on from a near 2% gain on Friday on the back of multiple news reports that the bank's new chief executive Matt Comyn is looking to cut up to $2 billion of costs from the bank by making around 1 in 4 or 10,000 staff redundant.
This certainly seems a radical plan given it's likely to badly hurt morale at what is a services and largely customer-facing business, while it will also not be popular with politicians keen to protect jobs.
However, it shows how determined the new CEO seems to be to protect the bank's dividends probably under pressure from institutional investors.
The plan does seem extreme and it should be noted it is not much more than a rumour at the moment, although investors clearly like the idea of eventually taking $2 billion in costs out of a business that generated $4.6 billion in profits over its most recent half year.
Elsewhere other banks such as Westpac Banking Corp (ASX: WBC) and Australia & New Zealand Banking Group (ASX: ANZ) also edged between 0.5% and 0.9% higher.
