Stock lending is primarily a professional activity. The supply of stocks in the lending market comes mainly from pension Funds and insurance companies, while intermediaries provide valuable services by taking positions as borrowers as well as lenders. Borrowers use stock lending for various reasons. For instance, hedge Funds usually borrow stocks to cover a short position. There has been a lot of controversy in the stock lending industry and the debate has mainly concerned its effects for the stock markets.

This paper includes astudy of the mutual fund market investors during a selected timeperiod. The reader is given a descriptive picture of how people in different age groups have  acted  in  conjunction  with  the  last  major  financial  crisis.  It  has  been  studied whether people in the different age categories have saved,purchased or sold during this time  period  based  on  theories  and  analytic  material  from  one  of  the  largest  fund operators in Sweden. The result enlightens people?s activity and risk appetite in relation to the fund market. The essay results in an explanation of the underlying cause of the behavior        of         the         people         in         the         different         age         categories.The paper assumes that the market is cyclical and that more crises will occur in the future.

Bakgrund: Fonder är en sparform som har utvecklats och blivit en av de mest populära och framgångsrika placeringsformerna på marknaden. Många företag väljer därför, efter en högkonjunktur följd av möjlighet till reservsparande, att investera på fondmarknaden för att kunna öka sitt kapital under kommande lågkonjunktur. Att välja en stor och trögrörlig eller en liten och snabbfotat fond kan vara av avgörande karaktär när man ska se till utvecklingen.Problemformulering: Har fondstorleken betydelse vid placering i fonder under lågkonjunktur?Syfte: Klargöra huruvida fondstorleken har betydelse för avkastningen vid placering i svenska aktiefonder under lågkonjunktur.Metod: Studien använder sig av metodtriangulering där ett kvantitativt upplägg kombineras med ett kvalitativt inslag i form av en intervju. En deduktiv ansats anammas.

Foreign aid is a very debated and controversial topic. The most recent studies have focused more on GDP growth and foreign aid correlation, however not much of the debate has focused on what kind of foreign aid should be given. The most common foreign aid is budget support, often a bilateral Funds transfer between two countries. This kind of foreign aid can be both conditional and unconditional from the donors? perspective.

The number of elderly people has been steadily rising in Sweden for a long time and as a proportion of the population, the increase has been even greater. The population structure in the country means that in the not too distant future, there will be a sharp rise in demand for care and elderly accommodation.A tighter credit market as a consequence of new rules and regulations with a stricter capital and liquidity requirements combined with market turbulence, has made financing property developement more difficult and more expensive which has resulted in many companies using alternative sources of finance.DEmand for safe investments with low risk is high as the market is volatile and banks, pension Funds, fund management and life insurance companies are looking for investments outside the stock market that can deliver a safe return in the longer term. There has also been a debate about whether institutional investors as the AP pension Funds really should own properties directly.As properties for care and elderly accommodation are definable assets with predictable payment flows, long leases and often a local authority as tenant that would not risk cancelling payments, these would be highly appropriate for securitisation, i.e. to issue bonds or other tradable securities based on the cash flows from the assets.In other words, the securitisation of rent flows would offer the opportunity to create an attractive investment product of the type being demanded, well suited to institutional investor requirements, while at the same time, it can provide an attractive financing opportunity to meet the need for more care and elderly accommodation..

This BSc thesis is a part of an initial step of a collaboration between Skansen and Kenyan Wildlife Service (KWS) and constitutes of an inventory of the Nairobi Animal Orphanage run by KWS. Animal Orphanage takes care of orphaned and injured animals arriving from throughout Kenya. The project started out as a refuge and as a temporary place for animals in need of care and help. With time it has evolved to an establishment that resembles and functions more like an animal zoo. The aim of this inventory is to focus on how the biological needs of Congo grey parrots ( Psittacus erithacus erithacus) and cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus) are met, in terms of management and housing.

This BSc thesis is a part of an initial step of a collaboration between Skansen and Kenyan Wildlife Service (KWS) and constitutes of an inventory of the Nairobi Animal Orphanage run by KWS. Animal Orphanage takes care of orphaned and injured animals arriving from throughout Kenya. The project started out as a refuge and as a temporary place for animals in need of care and help. With time it has evolved to an establishment that resembles and functions more like an animal zoo. The aim of this inventory is to focus on how the biological needs of Congo grey parrots ( Psittacus erithacus erithacus) and cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus) are met, in terms of management and housing.

This BSc thesis is a part of an initial step of a collaboration between Skansen and Kenyan Wildlife Service (KWS) and constitutes of an inventory of the Nairobi Animal Orphanage run by KWS. Animal Orphanage takes care of orphaned and injured animals arriving from throughout Kenya. The project started out as a refuge and as a temporary place for animals in need of care and help. With time it has evolved to an establishment that resembles and functions more like an animal zoo. The aim of this inventory is to focus on how the biological needs of Congo grey parrots ( Psittacus erithacus erithacus) and cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus) are met, in terms of management and housing.

The European Union is a 60 year long collaboration between the European countries. It was born from the intention to ease trade and thereby reassure peace. Within the 60 years EU has functioned it has developed and expanded further. In 1952 it evolved around the trade of coal and steel between six countries, today it includes 27 nations and oversees a large number of topics such as foreign affairs, a common currency and regional politics. EU has grown at several times, the latest expansion was the largest where 12 new countries became members. The unions of countries that only 60 years ago were at different sides of a world war can be considered an accomplishment.

Background: The global capital markets have enlarged investment opportunities and thus also the sources of Funds for companies which increasingly face global markets for their services and products. Huge capital movements show that investors are constantly searching ways to minimise risk and maximise returns. In the light of the substantial growth of assets in institutional Funds, an important question for international finance is the degree to which institutional investors have diversified their portfolios internationally. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the international diversification of portfolio investments of institutional investors in Japan, the US and the UK and deepen into international diversification in portfolios of Japanese institutional investors. Demarcations: Institutional investors can use their power directly in companies or indirectly through capital markets.

The purpose of this essay is to test for significance between TED- spread and four different macrovariables, housing prices, Federal Funds rate, Asset Backes Securities and mortgage volume. Multiple regression has been used to search for significance between the dependent and the four independent variables. Our data consist of quarterly reports from January 1998 to June 2008. Our conclusion is that all of the four variables show a significant relation with TED- spread. The model explains 76 percent of the variation in TED- spread..

I have investigated how municipalities support children with ADHD. I have interviewed persons responsible in five different municipalities. The persons have had the authority to decide how the support Funds are to be shared in the municipality. Mostly I was interested to know if the support was the same in all these municipalities and if the children with ADHD really got the help and support they were entitled to. I discovered that the support varied; in some the children were correctly diagnosed but in others municipalities I was not convince.

Bakgrund: De flesta svenskarna sparar i form av värdepapper för att investera sina pengar och få en avkastning. Vilket placeringsalternativ ska de välja mellan investering i traditionella eller speciella fonder? De traditionella fonderna har en relativ avkastning och en stor risk, medan de speciella eller hedgefonderna har en lägre risk och en absolut positiv avkastning oavsett marknadsläge.I denna studie kommer att undersökas om hedgefonders avkastningsmönster är trovärdig, och om deras målsättning har uppnåtts under åtta års period.Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka om det finns ett samband mellan olika svenska hedgefonders investeringsstrategier och avkastningsmönster samt undersöka hur dessa hedgefonder skiljer sig från de traditionella fonderna och marknadsindexet. Delsyftet är att studera två olika perioder och urskilja hur fonderna presterar under hög respektive låg konjunktur läge.Metod: Studien är baserad på forskningsstrategin kvantitativa metoden. Sekundär data i form av historiska avkastningssiffror för åttaårsperiod är avhämtad.

Valet mellan aktiv respektive passiv fondförvaltning har sedan länge varit en omdiskuterad fråga inom privata fondsparandet. På senare tid har frågan kommit att återaktualiserat efter att de aktivt förvaltade storfonderna Allemansfond komplett och Kapitalinvest anklagats för vilseledande marknadsföring, då de inte har generat en högre avkastning än den generella marknaden. Inom den akademiska världen har erkända forskare och sedermera pristagare av Sveriges Riksbanks pris i ekonomisk vetenskap till Alfred Nobels minne, påvisat att aktivt förvaltade fonder inte kan generera en högre avkastning med hänsyn till förvaltningsavgifterna.Utifrån förvaltningsavgifterna påvisade betydelse har vi valt att studera effekten av de rabatterade förvaltningsavgifterna, inom Premiepensionssystemet. Studiens syfte är således att under tidsperioden, 1 januari 2004 till 31 december 2013, analysera om aktiv förvaltade fonder har genererat en högre riskjusterad avkastning än passivt förvaltade fonder, då hänsyn tagits till de rabatterade förvaltningsavgifterna.Studien baserades på dagliga marknadsnoteringar av 174 aktivt förvaltade premiepensionsfonder och årliga förvaltningsavgifter.  Vidare använde vi oss av ett globalt aktiemarknadsindex, MSCI World, som utifrån definitionen av passivt förvaltade fonder var synonymt med studiens jämförelseindex. I enlighet med studiens syfte använde vi oss av det riskjusterade avkastningsmåttet Sharpekvot för att kunna besvara studiens frågeställning. Resultatet av studien påvisade att aktivt förvaltade fonder har genererat en högre avkastning än passivt förvaltade fonder då hänsyn tagits till förvaltningsavgifter.

The main purpose of this Master Thesis has been to evaluate whether active fund management is profitable on Emerging Markets. The material used to examine this consists of 106 actively managed Funds, with varying length during the period 1988-2006 and who uses MSCI Emerging Markets (MSCI EM) as benchmark index. The thesis has been written under the supervision of the Asset Management Department of Länsförsäkringar AB (LFAB) and the Department of Production Economics, Linköping Institute of Technology. Apart from the main purpose, the methodology used is also meant to form a template for in-depth or similar studies, preferably by the assigner of this survey, LFAB.The results shows that the median manager underperforms the MSCI EM throughout the whole period, which leads to the conclusion is that active management on Emerging Markets is not profitable. A grouping of the Funds based on tracking error still shows that a majority of the managers in all of the groups underperforms against the benchmark.