Background: The value of stock recommendations have been debated for a century andthe debate has escalated since Alfred Cowles (1933) published his research in ?Can StockMarket Forecasters Forecast?? As of late, savings in stocks has increased and the householdsare managing their savings more actively. The consequence of the increased interestin stocks has resulted in a growing market for stock recommendations. Not just financialmedia but daily newspapers have embraced this new found interest, hence stock recom-mendations can be found in almost all large newspapers in Sweden. Furthermore, this phe-nomenon has also lead to intensified research within stock recommendations.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of joint venture announcements on stock prices behavior and simultaneously to test the German stock market (Frankfurter Wertpapierbörse) for efficiency. We tried not only to analyze the general impacts of a JV-announcement but also to look for differences in the market response to announcements of different types of joint ventures, namely: domestic, international, horizontal and vertical. Our expectations of efficient market were confirmed during our paper, which employed the technique of the standard event study. The calculation of abnormal returns which are the signals for market efficiency or inefficiency respectively were based on the market model, establishing linear relationship between the return on the market and the return on an individual security. The parameters of the model were obtained through regression analysis..

A trading halt is a measure conducted by a securities exchange in order to reduce information imbalances between market participants, thus enabling a higher level of market efficiency. A market is said to be efficient when new information concerning a company is instantly reflected in its stock price, implying that abnormal stock returns cannot be systematically achieved in an efficient market. The purpose of this study is to examine the occurrence of abnormal stock returns following trading halts on the Stockholm Stock Exchange. The study is based on a sample of 64 trading halts executed between January 2003 and February 2008. Historical daily prices for stocks subject to trading halts during the period have been gathered from the Datastream Advance database, while information on date and time of trading halts have been collected from the Stockholm Stock Exchange website.

The purpose of this study is to examine the capital market reaction generated by layoff announcements. The study takes place in Sweden and tests 138 news concerning layoffs which are categorized according to a content analysis. They are divided as: positive or negative news. The layoffs are also divided into three subgroups with varying sizes: 0,98 percent or less, between 0,99 and 4,49 percent or 4,5 percent or larger. The study uses an event study method to measure the reaction of the capital market.

We acknowledge the lack of empirical studies of the performance of analyst target prices in the Swedish stock market by examining the profitability of target prices for stocks publicly traded on the Stockholm Stock Exchange. We use consensus target prices issued between 2006-2010 and create two different strategies to observe the abnormal returns generated during this period. Going long in the top decile stocks with the best target prices and going short in the bottom decile stocks with the worst target prices generates a statistically significant abnormal buy-and-hold return of 8.9%. An active strategy with daily portfolio rebalancing and a timely response to target price changes generates a less significant monthly alpha of 1.4% against CAPM. The results show to be robust against the size effect discovered by Fama and French.

This thesis examines underpricing and the long run performance of IPO firms on the Swedish equity market during 1994-2010. We further investigate whether any correlation exist between underpricing and post-IPO performance during 36 months. We use a sample of 80 IPO firms. To examine the aftermarket performance we compare total return of each firm with a matching industry index. In order to strengthen our analysis, we run a second test, comparing actual return for each firm with expected return, adjusted for firm specific risk.

The question of whether financial analysts can forecast stock movements or not has been widely debated for many years. This study examines if an investor has been able to receive an excess return by following financial analysts? recommendations. We continue by studying if an investor has been able to earn a different excess return by following different types of recommendations. The study includes more than 15,000 recommendations made by 10 first tier banks and brokerages on the Swedish market during the years 2003-2007.

Huvudsyftet med uppsatsen är att se hur ett företags annonsering om återköp av aktier påverkar dess börskurs i Sverige. Som delsyfte kommer även en undersökning göras om huruvida reaktionen skiljer sig mellan olika branscher samt om Sveriges reaktion skiljer sig från den tidigare forskningen i USA och i Storbritannien. Undersökningen har genomförts med hjälp av en eventstudie där den abnormala avkastningen beräknas. En intervju utförs för att bekräfta resultatet.Resultatet gav en sammanlagd kumulativ avkastning på 0,57 %. Det visade även att det finns en skillnad mellan olika branschers reaktion på en annonsering av ett återköp.

Theability to beat the market is one of the most discussed topics in finance. Thereare very few investors that manage to accomplish this over longer periods oftime. Most of the financial research claims that this is impossible unless theinvestor increase the risk in the portfolio. However numerous of researchershave shown that it exist anomalies on the stock market which either indicatesthat the Capital Asset Pricing Modell (CAPM) or Fama and French three-factormodel fails to explain stock returns or that the market is not fully efficient.One investor that has claimed that the stock market is not fully efficient andthat it is possible to generate abnormal return is Benjamin Graham. Graham isone of the legends on Wall Street and he has shown that by using few variablesbased on public information, one can manage to beat the market over longer timeperiods.There arejust a few studies that have tested Graham?s criteria?s, however all of themindicates that they work but that the standard deviation might be higher forthe portfolios.

Recent accounting scandals, often led by managers trying to improve results and thereby their own bonuses, have severely damaged the publics view of management. In the aftermath of scandals such as Enron, Parmalat and Skandia, demand has increased for Corporate Governance codes and similar regulation. The Swedish code for Corporate Governance came into effect on July 1, 2005. The code requires all Swedish companies listed on the Swedish Stock Exchange (OMX A- and O-list), with a turnover exceeding 3 billion SEK, to disclose a report regarding Corporate Governance, attached to the annual report.The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the new disclosure required by the Swedish Corporate Governance code will have a measurable effect on stock prices. The authors have applied event study methodology examining daily returns around the announcement of the Corporate Governance reports.

I den ha?r uppsatsen analyseras avkastningen pa? bo?rsintroduktioner genomfo?rda av Private Equity-firmor pa? den svenska marknaden under perioden 1993-2011. Studien underso?ker huruvida bo?rsintroduktioner genomfo?rda av Private Equity genererar en abnormal avkastning relativt bo?rsintroduktioner som genomfo?rts av icke Private Equity, sammanlagt 97 bo?rsintroduktioner. Ba?da urvalsgrupperna relateras gentemot ja?mfo?relseindex i form av kontrollfirmor pa? kort och la?ng sikt.

En eventstudie gjordes på aktierekommendationer publicerade på Privata Affärers hemsida mellan 2009-2010. Publiceringsdagen för rekommendationen utgjorde eventdagen och ett eventfönster på fem dagar innan och fem dagar efter. Rekommendationerna delades upp i olika kategorier för att kunna se skillnader mellan köp, avvakta och säljrekommendationer samt för Mid Cap och Small Cap. Uppsatsen kunde inte påvisa någon generell statistisk signifikant överavkastning i någon av de undersökta kategorierna..

The aim of this study is to examine the market reaction when information about a company?s foreign direct investment is announced and how that affects the shareholder?s value. Also of interest is whether the market reacts differently depending on which country the investment is established in and which mode of entry is used. This will be achieved by using an event study approach. The selection that was used consisted of 206 companies registered on the Nasdaq OMX Nordic homepage, which had during a time period stretching from 1999 to 2009 established a foreign direct investment in the regions BRIC, Europe or the USA using the mode of organic growth, joint venture or acquisition.

The shareholder is supposed to be indifferent if one share costs 100 SEK, or 10 shares cost 10 SEK each. In an efficient market, shares should be valued directly to new expectations as a result of the announcement of the reverse split. We investigate whether abnormal returns incur surrounding reverse split and if owner structure change.One reason for the reverse share split is that most companies have plans to imple-ment other company?s specific events in order to survive rather than to change the price range to a more attractive level. We found a negative return in the ex-day at 8,1 per cent.

Background:Investments in different forms have always been popular to every human being. For the most common investments, such as stocks and bonds, there are loads of information to gather for the investor. Historical data like risk, return, dividends and fundamental data like annual reports are often very easy to find, regarding these kinds of investments. The background of this thesis is the lack of market information in residential real estate investments. A problem with this investment is that there is lack of information regarding risk adjusted return for real estates, which this thesis intends to present.Objective:The objective with this thesis is to study which alternative, directly-owned residential estates or stocks, who generates the highest risk adjusted return.