Background:It is always fascinating to observe the events that affect the stock market, especially as the numbers of influencing factors are so many and various. Political elections are important events in society and affect the corporate environment in different ways depending on which political party that is in power. This brings up the question of whether political elections are important enough to affect the stock market; and it is this question we intend to analyse in this paper.Purpose:The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether political elections affect the stock market and to discuss the reasons for any possible affect that might be found.Procedure:An appropriate and thoroughly tested method to investigate if an event affects the stock market or not, is to do an event study. Subsequently we chose to do an event study on whether the Swedish general elections in 2002 and 2006 affected the Stockholm Stock Exchange. In order to give the analysis more depth we have also chosen to interview people with knowledge of the stock market.

The purpose of this paper is to study whether or not stock returns increase abnormally over month ends on the Swedish stock exchange. Previous research has proven an international so called ?Turn-of-the-Month? effect where stock returns increase significantly over a few days around month ends. If the effect exists, it is a violation of Fama?s Efficient Market Hypothesis.

Background: Operating on the stock market is associated with risks. If a particular asset is not traded with the same frequency as the average market asset, this particular asset is exposed to a liquidity risk. It means that the investor might not be able to sell the asset at a desired time without incurring expensive transaction costs. The query is whether or not the investor is compensated with a liquidity premium for bearing the extra risk. Earlier studies on the Stockholm Stock Exchange have failed to prove that there is a relation between stock return and liquidity.

This study aims at examining if abnormal returns have existed on theSwedish stock market surrounding the ex-dividend period between the years2002 and 2006. The ex-dividend period that is studied is the ex-dividend dayplus the following five days. The stocks that have been studied are the thirtymost traded stocks which together constitute the index OMXS30.Furthermore, the study investigates if the size of the dividend has an effecton the size of the abnormal returns.Previously performed studies on both the Swedish stock market and foreignStock Markets have shown that abnormal returns exist during the ex-dividendperiod. However, the results from these studies are not unambiguous, why itis interesting to follow up these studies with a new study.The method used for investigating the existence of abnormal returns aroundthe ex-dividend period has taken its starting point in the previouslyperformed studies. However, some changes have been made in order tocalculate for differences in risk between different stocks (using beta) whichhas been neglected in the previous studies.The results of our study are that abnormal returns have existed for four outof six days in the ex-dividend period when calculating a mean value over allfive years.

The purpose of the thesis is to demonstrate how high frequency trading affects the stock market. The growing high frequency trading is affecting the game plan on the financial markets and concerns have grown about the high frequency users intentions with their business. It is difficult to receive an overall picture of the subject because the lack of previous research and even the research that exist do not show the entire picture. The thesis contributes to the research through a comprehensive picture of the present debate as well as the previous research through a literature study. Our results showed that high frequency trading provides liquidity to the market, there is a statistical connection between high frequency trading and volatility, no price manipulation is being used and there is a need for a supervision of the high frequency trading..

Sammanfattning Denna studie utreder om ett långsiktigt samband mellan oljepriset och valda aktieindex kan påvisas. Tre typer av aktieindex har valts, generalindex, industriindex och råvaruindex, för Sverige respektive Norge. För att undersöka det långsiktiga sambandet mellan oljepriset och aktieindex används kointegrations- och regressionsanalys. Studien visar att det bara förekommer ett långsiktigt samband mellan oljepriset och ett fåtal av aktieindexen. Nyckelord: Olja, Kointegration, Tidsserier, Aktieindex Abstract This Study investigates if a long-term relationship between oil price and selected stock indices can be proved.

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 the deregulation reform of the Swedish railroad industry, focusing on passenger transport between 1988 and 2005. The purpose of the thesis is to examine the effects from the deregulation reform on prices, market concentration and to determine whether SJ (the state owned incumbent) has been conducting strategic behaviour in order to prevent new entrants to the market. The chosen method consists of interviews with the MD at SJ between 1988 - 1998 Mr Karl-Erik Strand, the transportation researcher at SSE Mr Gunnar Alexandersson. Statistical sources and companies financial reports have also been used. The results that I have found were besides the fact that the market concentration is still significant high and the profitability among the operators low, is that the prices has increased more than CPI during the period but the competitive tendering has resulted in lower government subsidies after the deregulation.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine how the competitiveness of family firms is affected by governance mechanisms. The thesis addresses four governance mechanisms: inefficient labor markets, inefficient capital markets, self control and altruism. We have conducted an abductive method to be able to perform a qualitative research study. In this study two family firms have been examined, ROL and Indiska Magasinet. We conclude that the presence of inefficient labor and capital markets within the studied family firms give rise to negative effects in terms of difficulties of hiring talented employees.

In this paper we have looked closer on a car-retailer in the middle of Sweden. We have chosen to dig deeper in the different problems that can occur, related to the supply. Soon we realized that that the problems weren?t related to stock management. Through studying the whole of the company, we have identified reasons to why details aren?t in the stock.

This study investigates how the concept of Social Responsible Investment (SRI) can be applied to futures trading. More specifically, this study examines the possibility of creating a SRI-product for an investor, active in futures investments within commodities, energies and stock indices, and the content of such a product is suggested. We conducted a qualitative study, based on a number of interviews. The study suggests that investments in futures of specific assets are to be equated with investments directly in the underlying assets from a SRI point of view. Therefore, we analyzed the underlying assets of futures traded commodities, energies and stock indices, and used social screening, together with specific screening criteria, for the analysis.

SummaryThe purpose of this thesis is to examine what effect the IFRS 2 has on earnings, equity, financial strength and return on equity for listed Swedish companies with active stock option plans. The purpose is further to investigate the companies? attitudes towards IFRS 2 and to find out if companies tend to deviate from stock option plans due to the changed accounting rules. We also want to examine the view of IFRS 2 from an auditor?s perspective.We have used a deductive approach and a mix of quantitative and qualitative research methods with a view to get a completely clear picture within the field of study.

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.

This study explores whether environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues affect the monetary value of a company.The samples used in this study have been taken from the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) in South Africa. Since 2010, JSE have been categorizing companies using the King Code III criteria to establish a Socially Responsible Investment index (SRI index). Companies that fulfill the required number of criteria are classified as 'best performers' using the SRI index.  In this study the monetary value of a random sample of 'best performers' has been compared to the monetary value of a random sample of companies without an SRI index evaluation.This study found that companies without a SRI index have a higher unique risk, which means a lower stock price with a higher dividend yield. Companies with an SRI index evaluation have a lower unique risk, which means a higher stock price and lower dividend yield. In conclusion, this study shows that SRI adjusted companies have an enhanced monetary value in comparison to non- SRI adjusted companies..

Forecasting stock market returns is an interesting topic since more and more Swedes enter and invest in this market. Theory implies, however, that such exercises should be impossible. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the possibility to forecast future stock returns by looking at macroeconomic variables? history. The study is limited to the Swedish market as it is based on the OMXS30-index which represents the 30 most exchanged stocks on Stockholms¬börsen, the Swedish stock exchange.