The purpose of the study is to investigate how board structure influences CEO compensation for companies listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange in 2004. The theoretical frame of reference is based upon the corporate governance theory, the principal-agent theory and previous empirical research in the area. A cross sectional regression analysis is used, where a number of control variables are included and significance tests are conducted. The study is based on information regarding CEO compensation, and possible factors affecting the compensation, from 267 companies listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange A- and O-list in the year 2004. We find that the board structure has no significant effect on the CEO compensation.

Background: The debate about environment, labor conditions and aid to developing countries has the last years been a much discussed subject The pressure on the companies to live up to their responsibility is beginning to be noticed in the market.Purpose: To find out if a retail company investing in Corporate Social Responsibility thereby direct can effect it?s stock value. Using interviews to investigate if and how stock analysts and corporate finance professionals valuate a company?s CSR initiatives.Theoretical perspective: The description of CSR is leading to the main theory, The Brand Value Change, and the Market Hypothesis. Additionally a theory of the Consumer Buying Process and CAPM-model about financial risks is presented.Method: An event study of 30 companies to investigate if there is any change in their stock values and interviews with three professionals from the financial sector to find out about their attitude to CSR.

In line with Sloan (1996) but on European data (STOXX 600) we are investigating whether stock prices reflect information about future earnings contained in the accrual and cash flow components. The extent to which current earnings performance persists into the future earnings performance is shown to depend on the relative magnitudes of the cash and accrual components of current earnings. Moreover, we still find a significant positive excess return (Jensen?s alpha and size-adjusted return) by replicating Sloans (1996) hedge portfolio by taking a long position in the stock of firms reporting relatively low levels of accruals and a short position in the stock of firms reporting relatively high levels of accruals. However, we find no evidence of negative excess returns for companies with relatively high accruals, this somewhat lower the total excess returns for all the portfolios.

In line with Sloan (1996) but on European data (STOXX 600) we are investigating whether stock prices reflect information about future earnings contained in the accrual and cash flow components. The extent to which current earnings performance persists into the future earnings performance is shown to depend on the relative magnitudes of the cash and accrual components of current earnings. Moreover, we still find a significant positive excess return (Jensen?s alpha and size-adjusted return) by replicating Sloans (1996) hedge portfolio by taking a long position in the stock of firms reporting relatively low levels of accruals and a short position in the stock of firms reporting relatively high levels of accruals. However, we find no evidence of negative excess returns for companies with relatively high accruals, this somewhat lower the total excess returns for all the portfolios.

Aortic insufficiency is a very common valve problem in horses and most often affects older individuals, but nevertheless existent within younger ones. The root cause for aortic insufficiency can be varied, for example; endocarditis, ventricular septum defect or congenital valve disease but the most common are progressive valve degeneration or elite competition. Depending on the root cause, different changes can be observed on the aorta valves, but they do all have the same effect, the valves do not seal properly and blood leaks backwards. Many horses can, even with this deficiency, perform highly without any visible impacts and there is therefore no need to treat those subjects. Most often the symptoms arise at a later stage in life and they are, more often than none, put down for other reasons. In the occurrence of the clinical symptoms showing, treatment guideline is to inhibit these symptoms since the valve degeneration is presently irreversible.

Purpose: The main purpose of the thesis is to examine the profitability of Momentum Strategies on the Nordic stock markets. This will provide insight and contribute to the debate on efficient markets. Finding profitable Momentum Strategies will provide strong evidence of inefficiency in the market. A secondary purpose is to examine factors which might cause or impact the profitability of the Momentum Strategy. We will look closely at the relationship between the profitability and factors such as risk (CAPM-beta), market capitalization, trading volume and seasonality.

Pairs trading is a relatively new trading strategy, the strategy has only been used during a couple of decades. A study made on the American stock market has shown that the strat-egy has generated a positive result. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate if pairs trad-ing has been able to create a positive result on the Swedish stock market during the time period of 1995-2004.The data required for this thesis was collected from Stockholm stock exchange and is ad-justed for splits and issues.The pairs trading strategy involves two stages ? identification of pairs and trading signals. The pairs were identified during a period of 12 months.

Background: Pesticides in conventional food may be related to morbidity and mortality. Furthermore pesticides have a negative impact on the whole ecosystem. Organic food can presume better health as they contain less chemicals and toxins and contribute to sustainable development efforts.Objective: The aim was to examine what attitudes consumers have regarding to purchase organic fruit, vegetables and root vegetables.Methods: The association between consumers? views on conventional food and organic food was investigated using questionnaire given to a population sample of men and women aged by 23-65 (N=60) in grocery stores and in a fitness center. The study was based on a cross-sectional study in a municipality in central Sweden.Results: Consumers were interested to buy organic food.

After a series of corporate scandals around the world the trust in the business world was damaged, probably most in the United States but also in Sweden. Voices were raised for an increase in the openness and insight into the affairs of the company whereupon different corporate governance codes were developed in a majority of countries. A Swedish corporate governance code was issued in December 2004 with the purpose to re-establish the damaged trust for the companies and the business world. The Swedish code was accepted by the Stockholm Stock Exchange as an exchange rule for A-listed and larger O-listed companies as of July 2005. The purpose of this essay is to study how the Swedish corporate governance code in fact leads to an increase in trust in the stock market and to study the companies? attitudes towards this code.To fulfil the purpose of this essay, the authors have carried out a survey among the concerned companies where the companies? attitudes towards the Swedish code were collected.

This paper investigates the relation between stock performance and owner share retention in Swedish public equity listings during 2009 to 2013. The listings during the period are studied and divided into binary groups of "exits" and "non-exits", which are used in a statistical regression model to determine if there is a significant difference in average stock performance. The study finds that stocks of exit-companies on average significantly underperformed stocks of non-exit-companies during 2009 to 2013. Nevertheless, due to the limited number of observations available and the unusual market conditions, caution is required in interpreting these results..

A debate in finance is whether a random investment gives the same return as carefully choose and valuing an amount of shares to invest in. Stock valuating Stock valuation is often done by fundamental valuation models, based on the company's underlying character, which tries to put a correct price on the stock. Today there are several different valuation models that can be used for this purpose. Since valuation models are only mathematical, equity research is underpinned by more subjective assessments about the company and its future.The purpose with this thesis is to describe which valuation models that are used by professional stock analysts, but also to see if the reliability on the equity research is affected by the used model to valuing the company. Furthermore, we want to see if the job that?s been done to understand the company, measured by the equity research quality, impact the reliability on the equity research.In this thesis, we have, to achieve our purpose, conducted a quantitative content analysis of 164 equity research done by professional analysts at firms listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange. With basis in previous research, we have developed a method for determining the valuation model that is used in the equity research, the reliability on the equity research and a framework for assessing the quality of the equity research.In the theoretical framework the valuation models involved in our study are described, previous research on the reliability on the equity research and their practical use.

Question:"Does the market possess perfect information as the efficient market hypothesis says?""Is there any significant relationship between the abnormal stock return on the ex ? day and the dividend?" Purpose: The purpose of this study is to enlighten and find understanding about stock return versus dividend on the ex ? day and try to figure out if abnormal returns occur on the portfolio during dividends.Methodology:The study was based in a quantitative nature and was derived with an event study and a hypothesis testing. The authors investigated the thirty most traded shares on the Stockholm stock exchange during a period of five years (2005 ? 2009). They were analyzed during a total of nine days; the estimation window was set to sixty days.

Our essay treats the use of the annual report when it comes to marketing. Today there are many different ways for companies to reach out with their different messages; the thing that caught our interest was if the annual report is such a way.The annual report is an external accounting report which task is to give information to interested parties of companies. The annual report can be used to examine if the company has followed and achieved their goals. In other words it?s an important source of information that can be found about a company, which different interested parties can take part of for analyze.

Syfte: Att utreda om nordiska aktiers volatilitet förändrats i samband med att de noterat sig på London Stock Exchange, New York Stock Exchange eller NASDAQ Stock Market. Vidare är syftet att se om aktiens korrelation med hemmamarknadens totalindex samt deras respektive branschindex har förändrats efter noteringen utomlands. Metod: Vi har i vår uppsats använt oss av en ?event study? där vi har beräknat korrelations- och volatilitetsförändringar vid nordiska bolags utlandsnotering ett år före och ett år efter noteringen med en avgränsning till efter 1990. Vid analysen har vi använt oss av en korralationsberäkningar och statistiska metoder som F-test för att mäta volatilitetsförändringar.

After the deregulation of the Swedish pharmacy market customers can be lost due to stock-outs. Optimization of pharmacy inventory levels has thus become increasingly important. To minimize inventory costs while considering the cost of shortages the latter must be estimated. However, the shortage cost is very difficult to compute. Thus, the aim of this paper is to estimate the pharmacy-specific shortage cost parameter and its relation to other inventory costs.