Here’s our latest on two top blue chips: Bank of Nova Scotia and BCE Inc.

Article Excerpt

BANK OF NOVA SCOTIA $76.98 (Toronto symbol BNS; Shares outstanding: 1.2 billion; Market cap: $92.9 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 4.7%; www.scotiabank.com) is Canada’s third-largest bank. Thanks to an improving economic outlook, the bank is reversing some of the provisions it booked to cover bad loans during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. In the quarter ended January 31, 2021, Bank of Nova Scotia set aside $764 million to cover future loan losses. That’s down 7.5% from $926 million a year earlier. More important, the latest provisions are down 32.4% from the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020. Due to those lower provisions, the bank’s earnings in the latest quarter rose 2.7%, to $1.88 a share (or a total of $2.29 billion) from $1.83 a share (or $2.23 billion). Earnings from Canadian banking operations (40% of the total) improved 0.8% in the quarter, due to the lower loss provisions. However, profits at the international banking business (17%) fell 35.3% due to the sale…