This study investigates a method for identifying human capital and its effect on company valuation. We devise a measure for the efficiency of human capital based on the personnel cost. We include all companies listed in the financial and industry sector on Nasdaq OMX Stockholm in an attempt to examine human capital and its effect on firm valuation. Our results indicate that a higher efficiency of human capital has a positive effect on return on assets. However, we find that our measure can be interpreted in two ways; either as a firm?s level of human capital efficiency or its dependency on human capital, to achieve its net sales and revenue.

Denna uppsats utgörs av en jämförande studie vars mål var att utröna huruvida åtta stycken utvalda investmentbolag på Stockholmsbörsen hade varit ett konkurrenskraftigt alternativ som sparform eller inte med avseende på risk och avkastning. Detta jämfört med SIX Return Index och den riskfria räntan under en tidsperiod på tio år, 2001-01-01 till 2010-12-31.Syftet med undersökningen var att den i slutändan skulle mynna ut i generella slutsatser kring investmentbolag som sparform utifrån de data som hämtats in från de berörda investmentbolagens hemsidor.Författarna kunde efter avslutad undersökning dra slutsatsen att investmentbolagen historiskt sett hade klarat sig mycket bra och kunnat uppvisa resultat som varken marknaden eller den riskfria räntan var i närheten av. Även om vissa av investmentbolagen hade presterat sämre än jämförelsemåtten så var dock den samlade bilden att de som grupp hade varit ett mycket fördelaktigt investeringsalternativ. Detta med en genomsnittlig totalavkastning som överträffade index med drygt åtta procent.  .

Background: There has been an increase in savings and investment in recent years along with an increased interest in responsible investments. Ethical mutual funds has developed and gained increasingly popularity.Aim: The aim of the study is to examine if ethical mutual funds are an equivalent alternative to traditional mutual funds in terms of return, risk and risk-adjusted return on the Swedish stock market.Theory: Beta, Jensen's Alpha, Sharpe ratio, Treynor ratio, and Modern Portfolio Theory.Method: Quantitative survey method, a statistical study.Conclusion:The study concludes that there is no significant difference between ethical and conventional mutual funds in terms of return, risk and risk-adjusted return. The small differences that exist between the two fund groups are in favor of the ethical fund group, indicating that funds is a comparable investment option compared to traditional mutual funds..

PR appears to be an indistinct division and a complicated resource for companies to value. The current circumstances are negative to the credibility and reliability of PR. This study emphasizes how an application of return on investment contributes to a more strategic use of PR and increases the status and credibility for the division.We experience that measuring the economic value of PR is of great importance and of current interest with few prior studies made. The purpose of this study is to find out how a PR-agency and one of its clients relates to and works with evaluation of PR-activities and to which extent the economic contribution of the activity is measured.The foundation which the theoretical reference grounds on is theories of Delusions of PR and the use of benefit-cost analyzes, Stages and Levels for Evaluating Public Relations Programs, Marketing Return on Investment and PR Return on Investment. The theoretical reference serves as a base during the analyze of the study.The conclusion, based on the empirical body of information, is that an application of return on investment could contribute with a higher status and credibility for the PR-division.

Aim: The aim of this study is to do a comparative study between Swedish Ethical equity Funds with Swedish traditional equity funds in terms of return, risk and risk-adjusted return.Theory: Sharpe ratio and Modigliani-Modigliani.Method: The essay will be based on a quantitative research method in which secondary data is the basis for the calculations. A statistical analysis was applied.Conclusion: The study concludes that there is no significant difference between the ethical fund group and the traditional fund group in terms of return, risk and risk-adjusted returns. The traditional fund group was those who had the best returns but only by small margins..

Denna eventstudie syftar till att undersöka hur ett byte av noteringslista påverkar kumulativ onormal avkastning (CAR) 1 till och med 12 månader efter genomfört byte. I studien undersöks därför utförda byten av noteringsplats på den svenska aktiemarknaden under tidsperioden 1995-2009. I studien beräknas onormal avkastning delvis med marknadsmodellen (MM) som grund, men också med Fama & French tre-faktormodell (FF) för att öka reliabiliteten. Vidare undersöks om skillnader i CAR föreligger under olika tidsintervall samt om olikheter förekommer efter att berörda företag delats in i undergrupper baserade på typ av byte, industri samt storlek. Slutligen testas utifall den eventuella kumulativa onormala avkastningen är signifikant skild från noll med student t-test samt om det föreligger skillnader i medelvärde i de olika undergrupperna.

Problembakgrund: Finansiella rapporter är ett sätt för företagen att kommunicera med investerare och intressenter. Samtidigt som det finns lagar och förordningar som styr redovisning och rapporterns utseende finns det goda möjligheter för företagsledningen att påverka de siffror som presenteras i de publika rapporterna genom periodiseringar. Denna studie tar konceptet kring att investera baserat på graden av periodiseringar till den svenska aktiemarknaden.Problemformulering: Är det möjligt att generera riskjusterad överavkastning på den svenska aktiemarknaden med periodiseringsbaserade investeringsstrategier?Syfte: Huvudsyftet med studien är att undersöka investerares möjlighet till riskjusterad överavkastning på den svenska aktiemarknaden utifrån investeringsstrategier baserade på graden av periodiseringar. Ett delsyfte är att jämföra två delperioder för att undersöka om periodiseringsanomalins förekomst förändrats över den totala undersökningsperioden.

This thesis aims to open the Pandora?s Box of hedge fund styles through an index-based style analysis. This information asymmetry is due to both less strict disclosure requirements and inherent nature of hedge funds. We employ a multiple unconditional linear regression model wherein 23 Swedish hedge funds are regressed on 10 style indices. In addition to the increased interest in hedge funds and their performance drivers, our unique approach with regressing return on return motivates this study.

Purpose: The study examines the risk a rising from the acquisition of shares, and its relation to the expected return. We would like to see how a high-risk portfolio is related to a low-risk portfolio. Although studying the portfolios annual performance.Theory: The theories that have been used in the study are, Capital asset pricing model, CAPM and portfolio theory.Method: The study is based on a quantitative method, the time interval is from 2008 to 2010.The annual reports, historical stock prices for companies and the index are used to perform calculations based on the essay theories.Conclusion: The beta value has positive liner correlation with the expected return. When there are bad times in the world, the companies are negatively affected regardless of industry. The Portfolios developed in the same direction during the time period..

Previous research has shown that the market reacts on stock recommendations. As the Internet has made financial information more available and cheaper to assess one could believe that the market reflects more available information today. If this is true the market will react less on recommendation made by journalists, which generally consists of processed public information. The stock market should thus be more efficient according to the efficient market hypothesis. This study examines initially if we can conclude that stock recommendations made by journalists generate returns above the expected returns, hence abnormal returns.

Scania?s discount rate - the return requirement of investments - refers to Scania?s WACC or weighted average cost of capital. The capital markets return requirement on equity and the credit market interest cost of borrowing is weighted to become the single discount rate, the WACC. The purpose of this study is to investigate which asset pricing model of APT and CAPM Scania should use in their WACC calculations. The company now uses a group WACC of 11 percent which is used in all company levels.

With this paper we intend to investigate what kind of benefits there are by adding commodity futures to a well-diversified portfolio. Since the last fifteen years the commodity speculation has grown tremendously, which partially can be explained by that commodities exposes the investor to certain factors other than an investment in equities. According to our calculations the commodity futures have outperformed stocks during our research period, which partially could be explained by the increasing demand of physical commodities in developing countries e.g. India & China (Akey, 2005). By constructing different portfolios consisting of equities and corporate bonds we could investigate whether our portfolios will benefit from commodity futures and how this will vary over different levels of risk.

Background: In 1999 the Swedish pension system was reformed with an aim to create a stable and high return on pension assets. First, Second, Third and Fourth general pension funds, hereby referred to as AP1-AP4, had an important part in the reform. AP1-AP4, also called the buffer funds, was assigned to secure long-term, big parts of the pension capital. The funds objective is by law, to manage the fund's assets in a manner that provides maximum benefit for the state pension. The funds will also invest pension assets with an overall low level of risk while achieving a sustainable high return.Aim: The purpose of this study is to investigate whether the First-Fourth AP-Funds is meeting its objectives regarding risk and return according to Swedish law.

The aim of this study is to describe young people?s experiences returning home after beinginstitutionalized for over two years. The young people in this study describe their feelingsregarding their return home which involves reuniting with their families, their friends andstarting school. The study is conducted through five semi-structured using qualitativeindividual interviews with two boys and three girls. The theoretical points of departure areconcepts from the Symbolic interactionism and the Bioecology model of human development.The results of the study show that reunion with families is not easily accomplished by theadolescents and returning home is likely to be very stressful.

The aim of this thesis is to describe the development of profitability and capital structure in Swedish quoted companies during the period of 1990 to 2004. Further, the aim is to determine the relationship between profitability and leverage in order to conclude whether the choice of capital structure supports the pecking order theory or the trade-off theory of capital structure. The findings show that return on assets fluctuates between 3 and 11 percent and that return on equity fluctuates between 3 and 22 percent during the period. Further, the leverage and the cost of debt have decreased. This indicates lowered financial risk in Swedish quoted companies in the period between 1990 and 2004.