CBA Closing On BHP For Market Cap Crown: Both Shares At Key Technical Levels

Commonwealth Bank of Australia shares (ASX: CBA) were one of the better performers on the ASX today, pushing the company within A$5.43 billion of BHP Group at the top of the ASX by market cap. With a rotation out of mining stocks and into financials, what was a huge lead at the top of the index has narrowed significantly.

The CBA share price was the leader amongst the Big Four banks into the weekend, adding 4.35% to close at A$164.00, to cap what has been a strong two-week run, up 9.85%. This has lifted CBA’s market cap to A$274.45 billion. BHP shares on the other hand have moved in the opposite direction, falling 9.67% over the same period to sit with a market cap of A$279.88 billion. Risk appetite has fallen, with the AI trade also falling flat, seeing a boost in demand for defensive names such as the big banks.

The sector movement highlights the scale of the shift underneath the index level. The S&P/ASX 200 Financials Index (XFJ) closed Friday up 2.21% to lock in a 4.00% weekly gain, with National Australia Bank adding 3.25%, Westpac rising 3.11%, and ANZ posting a 0.88% gain. The Materials Index (XMJ) told the opposite story, falling 3.85% in the session and finishing the week 7.70% lower, as copper retreated from record highs and gold prices have fallen back towards $4,000.

Commodity Prices Fall, Weighing on BHP

BHP’s pullback has followed the global copper market, as LME copper prices fell 1.8% overnight to US$14,105.50 per tonne, touching an intraday low of US$14,076.00, and now sit meaningfully below last month’s record high of US$14,875.00 per tonne.

A sharp two-day surge of 70,100 tonnes in LME on-warrant inventories, concentrated largely in US warehouses, added to the pressure. Backwardation in the copper forward curve had encouraged short position holders to deliver metal physically against their obligations, and the resulting inventory build rattled a market that had been pricing in sustained supply tightness.

Adding a further layer of uncertainty, Comex copper futures have retreated to near parity with LME prices amid growing market scepticism that the United States will follow through on proposed import tariffs on refined copper. That tariff premium had been a key driver of the Comex-LME spread widening earlier in the year, and its erosion signals that the trade has largely unwound.

For BHP, which has positioned copper as the centrepiece of its long-term energy transition growth story, the near-term price softness and inventory accumulation create a less favourable earnings backdrop heading into the final months of the calendar year.

CBA and BHP shares move in opposite directions

The last two weeks have been almost exact opposites for the two market leaders, as CBA’s gain of 9.85% and BHP’s loss of 9.67% have compressed a gap that looked very healthy just a couple of weeks ago. Should the current trend continue, CBA could well reclaim the crown as top market cap name on the ASX leaderboard for the first time in a while, having started calendar 2026 in that exact spot.

The trajectory of global copper prices and the domestic interest rate outlook for Australian banks are likely to prove decisive in the weeks ahead as far as who tops out by year end. On the commodity side, the near-term picture for copper remains clouded. While the structural demand case built around electrification, grid infrastructure, and electric vehicles remains intact over a multi-year horizon, the immediate headwinds from inventory builds, fading tariff speculation, and a pullback from record highs suggest the metal may consolidate before finding a new directional catalyst.

The setup from here

From a technical standpoint, CBA’s close at A$164.00 represents a reclaim of the psychological $160 zone, whilst BHP shares have fallen through A$60 to sit at A$55.05. The 200 day SMA at A$165.32 will be the next meaningful target for CBA bulls, which is a line that BHP shares have just fallen below (200 day at A$57.70). The inverse moves highlight a clear shift in sentiment, which is further evidenced in the RSIs of each. CBA has risen to the fringes of overbought at 68, whilst BHP is on the fringe of oversold at 31.79 in a clear confirmation of momentum.

Commonwealth Bank shares may be closing the gap at the top, but with BHP still holding a A$5.43 billion lead and copper’s long-term structural story far from exhausted, the outcome of this contest remains genuinely open heading into the final couple of months of the year. The macro backdrop could well play the leading role in determining which one of these two juggernauts closes out the year on top.