Updating Bank of Nova Scotia, Imperial Oil Ltd. and Thomson Reuters Corp.

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BANK OF NOVA SCOTIA $54 (Toronto symbol BNS; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Finance sector; Shares outstanding: 1.0 billion; Market cap: $54.0 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.4; Dividend yield: 3.6%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.scotiabank.com) will get $47 million in earnings from its Mexican subsidiary in its current quarter. To put this in context, Bank of Nova Scotia earned $1.1 billion, or $0.98 a share, in the three months ended July 31, 2010. The Mexican operation’s latest earnings are down 10.2% from a year earlier, largely because it wrote down the value of certain securities it holds. Without these writedowns, its earnings would have risen 11%. Bank of Nova Scotia is a buy. IMPERIAL OIL LTD. $39 (Toronto symbol IMO; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Resources sector; Shares outstanding: 848.0 million; Market cap: $33.1 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.4; Dividend yield: 1.1%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.imperialoil.ca) owns 70% of the massive Kearl oil-sands project in Alberta. Imperial’s parent company, ExxonMobil Corp. owns the remaining 30%. It…