Bank of Nova Scotia’s fourth quarter profit surged more than 100% amid near record performance from the investment banking division and strong results from retail banking.

For the three months ended Oct 31, Canada’s third largest bank reported net income of $902-million, up from $315-million last year.

“Our strategy of diversification by business and geography, and our focus on aggressively managing risks has again enabled our bank to earn through the challenges of volatile markets and difficult economic times,” Rick Waugh, the chief executive, said in a statement.

John Aiken, an analyst at Barclays Capital, said there results were mostly in line with what the Street was expecting.

"Sentiment wise, I think the impact is going to be very similar to Royal Bank," said Mr. Aiken, adding that Royal's failure to provide a positive surprise when it reported on Friday helped push down the bank's shares.

"I think Scotia's shares will tread water if not trade down a little today," he said.

In its second strongest quarter on record, Scotia Capital had net income of $353-million, up more than seven-fold from the same period in 2008 as the bank was helped by a surge in equity and debt issuance and strong trading revenues.

International banking was another highlight with profit of $283-million, up from $277-million last year.

"Overall, it was a pretty decent quarter," said one analyst. At 89 cents a share, operating earnings were 2 cents ahead of the consensus estimate, while trading revenues and capital ratios also came out better than expected, he said.

The results were helped by acquisitions and growth in retail loans, offsetting fair-value accounting changes to certain assets.

The bank had a Tier 1 ratio of 10.7%, up from 9.3% last year.

The dividend on the common shares was maintained at 49 cents.

Provisions for credit losses, essentially money set aside for loans that may not be repaid, were $420-million, up from $207-million last year, but down $134-million from the prior quarter.