Once again, Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA) shares have been in the ASX headlines.
CBA released its latest earnings this week in one of the first major reports of the current earnings season.
As we covered at the time, these earnings were initially poorly received by investors, with the CBA share price dipping upon market open yesterday. But investors quickly reevaluated, with CBA shares closing up a robust 2.36% for the day after hitting a new all-time high.
Today, the momentum has continued to build for CBA, with this ASX 200 bank stock hitting yet another new record, this one at $167.61 a share. At the time of writing, the bank has cooled off a little from that high, but is still up 0.31% at $166.48 a share.
That puts CBA shares up 8.4% in just 2025 to date and up a huge 43.5% over the past 12 months. See for yourself here:
It's no secret that almost every ASX expert you ask reckons CBA shares are sitting at a lofty valuation, to say the least.
But one expert has gone so far as to call CBA a 'meme stock'.
Are CBA shares now a 'meme stock'?
The term 'meme stock' gained prominence in 2020, when an influx of COVID dollars spurred some investors to concoct wild schemes to pump up certain shares. Of course, the most famous of these stocks was GameStop Corp (NYSE: GME), which had an incredible share price journey throughout 2020 and 2021.
Between July 2020 and January 2021, investors took advantage of short squeezes to send this company up over 8,000%.
CBA shares have obviously not seen anything of this magnitude. But even so, analysts at Barrenjoey are comfortable using the term.
As reported in The Australian, Barrenjoey bank analyst Jon Mott still regards CBA as a "strong and well run bank". However, he views CBA shares as "disconnected from reality" and a "very high risk investment" at current levels.
Here's what Mott had to say in full:
At a high level CBA's result demonstrated ongoing momentum, with solid
lending growth and balance sheet strength…Impressively, CBA is now writing 45 per cent of all proprietary mortgages in Australia. However, when we dig into the detail we see a material change in its lending profile, with investor flow now its highest percentage on record and heavily skewed to the rich.
Meanwhile, CBA's share of young adult customers is slipping despite its domination of the student migrant market. While we view CBA as a very strong and well-run bank, its share price has disconnected from reality.
At 27.4 times we believe it is trading more like a meme stock, making it a very high risk investment.
CBA's earnings multiple does indeed look expensive compared to other banks and arguably other stocks. At today's highs, CBA was closing on a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 30.
In contrast, National Australia Bank Ltd (ASX: NAB) is currently on an earnings multiple of 18.3. Westpac Banking Corp (ASX: WBC) is similarly valued, while ANZ Group Holdings Ltd (ASX: ANZ) trails the pack with its 14.7 ratio.
Even Google-owner Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG)(NASDAQ: GOOGL) is theoretically cheaper than CBA shares, with its current P/E ratio of 23.77.
Even so, we've heard all of this before, and it hasn't stopped CBA shares from hitting new record highs after new record highs. Let's see how long it takes before we see this ASX 200 bank stock at $170 a share.
