The Globe and Mail reports in its Saturday edition that Bank of Nova Scotia, the perennial underperformer among the Big Six lenders, has been leading the pack over the past three months, with a gain of more than 15 per cent. The Globe's David Berman writes that given the upbeat outlook in this week's quarterly earnings report and the stock's far more reasonable valuation in a fully valued sector, Scotiabank should be able to maintain the momentum. The stock's comeback won't come as a surprise to investors who embrace the popular buy-the-laggard strategy -- buying the worst-performing Canadian big bank stock in the hope of a rebound. Scotiabank's returns over the past five years put it dead last among the Big Six, as investors fretted over the bank's less profitable operations in emerging markets, among other things. The banking sector's high valuations have been raising eyebrows among analysts, but Scotiabank trades at 15.3 times analysts' estimated earnings, the lowest price-to-earnings ratio among the Big Six and well below Royal Bank of Canada's premium 17.8 P/E ratio. The dividend yield is 3.5 per cent, the highest among the Big Six and the only bank that currently has a yield above 3 per cent.