Is The Bank of Nova Scotia (USA) (BNS) Going to Burn These Hedge Funds?

Is The Bank of Nova Scotia (USA) (NYSE:BNS) a good place to invest some of your money right now? We can gain invaluable insight to help us answer that question by studying the investment trends of top investors, who employ world-class Ivy League graduates, who are given immense resources and industry contacts to put their financial expertise to work. The top picks of these firms have historically outperformed the market when we account for known risk factors, making them very valuable investment ideas.

Is The Bank of Nova Scotia (USA) (NYSE:BNS) a buy, sell, or hold? The smart money is betting on the stock. The number of bullish hedge fund bets moved up by 1 lately. At the end of this article we will also compare BNS to other stocks including Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA (ADR) (NYSE:BBVA), Metlife Inc (NYSE:MET), and National Grid plc (ADR) (NYSE:NGG) to get a better sense of its popularity.

To the average investor there are numerous indicators stock traders have at their disposal to value stocks. A pair of the best indicators is composed of hedge fund and insider trading activity. We have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the best hedge fund managers can trounce the broader indices by a superb amount (see the details here).

Now, we’re going to check out the key action surrounding The Bank of Nova Scotia (USA) (NYSE:BNS).

How have hedgies been trading The Bank of Nova Scotia (USA) (NYSE:BNS)?

At Q3’s end, a total of 17 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 6% from the previous quarter. With hedgies’ capital changing hands, there exist a few noteworthy hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes significantly (or already accumulated large positions).

Of the funds tracked by Insider Monkey, Tetrem Capital Management, managed by Daniel Bubis, holds the number one position in The Bank of Nova Scotia (USA) (NYSE:BNS). Tetrem Capital Management has a $155.1 million position in the stock, comprising 5.3% of its 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Cliff Asness of AQR Capital Management, with a $76.9 million position; 0.2% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Remaining hedge funds and institutional investors that hold long positions contain Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital, Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies and Neil Chriss’s Hutchin Hill Capital.