We investigate if the size of goodwill compared to total assets has any effect on the shareholders return on companies listed on the Swedish Stock market. We put up two different hypotheses with a foundation from previous research and later dismiss one of them. Our evidence does not show any indicators that the size of goodwill have an effect on the shareholders return, which brings us to believe that there, from a share holders point of view, isn?t any need for concern regarding the standards about accounting for goodwill as stated by IFRS. .

It is easy to see that oil has a big part in our economy, by looking at the repeated news from the media and at the stock market, where they follow the oil price very closely. Behavioral finance is about investors making small or big mistakes in the stock market. Behavioral finance describes the importance of understanding your own faults, as well as others investor?s faults. Behavioral finance emphases the importance of not assuming that the financial market is a flawless environment, but to understand the psychology behind investment decisions.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The swedish rule concerning the treatment of employee stock-options have changed and the new wording of the rule will be applicable for the first time in 2010. The previous wording of the rule stated that the employee shall be taxed for the stock-option when moving abroad, even if the option is not exercised. The Swedish Skatteverket and Regeringsrätten have found that this rule is in conflict with the free movement of persons within the European Union. The new wording of the rule states that the employee shall be taxed when the option is excercised, no matter where the employee is situated. A state`s right of taxation of a stock-option determines wheter and to what extent the employee stock-otion derives from that state..

Denna studie undersöker ifall det förekommer earnings management (EM) vid stock-for-stock-förvärv på den svenska marknaden. Tidigare forskning har gett tydliga tecken på att EM sker inför företagsförvärv och det finns starka incitament att använda sig utav det. Detta undersöks genom att studera om det sker en ökning av diskretionära periodiseringar, som mäts genom Modified Jones Model, åren innan förvärvet till skillnad från tidigare år. Studien undersöker även om målföretagets relativa storlek har en påverkan på EM. Undersökningens resultat från första hypotesprövningen indikerar att EM förekommer i svenska bolag redan tre år innan stock-for-stock-förvärv.

Background: Low Price-Earnings ratio, low Book-to market ratio and low stock prices can give the impression that a stock is ?cheap?. Is it through systematic use of these portfolio strategies possible to beat the market index ? in other words does financial illusions exist? Purpose: To examine if the Stockholm Stock Exchange is an efficient market. Limitations: The efficiency is tested solely through the chosen portfolio strategies: low Price-Earnings ratio, low Book-to-market ratio and low stock prices.

On Nasdaq OMX Nordic Stockholm there has been a large increase in issues of preferred stocks since the financial crisis 2008. Aiming to explain whether preferred stocks have most of their characteristics relating to debt or equity, we answer four sub questions. Do all preferred stocks share the same features, or do they differ from each other? Our population is similar in characteristics, except for the preferred stock of Swedbank which is convertible and deviates when it comes to participation in dividends - instead of convertible the others are limited and redeemable. Further, the second sub question treats preferred stock in relation to the common stock quantitatively, in market data.

The purpose of this Bachelor thesis is to analyze if there is a correlation between stock prices and the amount of searches of the companies names on Google. The theories used in the study were Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) and Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH). Regressions analysis is used as the statistical method to see if there is a significant correlation between the stock prices and the amout of searches of the company name on Google. The data used were the rate of return of three companies (ABB, Oriflame and Sandvik) on the Nasdaq OMX Nordic stock market, the rate of return of the Nasdaq OMX Nordic stock market index (OMX Stockholm_PI) and the Google search frequency from Google Trends on each company. The result showed no significance and the conclusion of the thesis is that there is no significant correlation between the three studied companies and their search frequency on the search engine Google..

Forest as an investment alternative has become more and more popular over the last few years. Between the years 2004 and 2007 increased the price level on forest land with 70 percent in Jämtland. In this thesis a comparison has been conducted between forest in Jämtland and an investment in the stock market. The risk in the two investment alternatives has been included in the comparison. The thesis includes two different studies between the two alternatives.

The implementation of IFRS 2 led to significant changes in the accounting practices for corporations regarding stock related compensation. The new regulations required firms to account for the stock based compensation as an expense in the financial statements, rather than merely disclosing the information in the notes section to the statements. Following prior research on the area; specifically studies made in the U.S., where researchers find that companies change their use of stock based compensation due to the increased accounted expenses, this study hypothesizes that the same pattern may be found among companies listed on the Swedish stock market. The results of this study show that the use of option incentives has decreased during the studied period 2001-2008 and that the decrease in part can be derived from IFRS 2 and in part from other factors. The results are useful to future research, as they provide an overview of the effects that IFRS 2 had on companies, and various factors that influence the behavior of corporations, as well as in a larger perspective be a factor to take into account for future modifications of the IFRS..

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.

This study is based on an ongoing debate regarding the Stockholm Stock Exchange, which centers around the possible abolition of quarterly reports. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to this debate by examining how the relationship between financial reports and stock price correlates. The study's methodological approach is based on the Capital Market Research frame-work in which an ERC model and an extended model are used to measure the relationship. Three hypotheses were formed to categorize the direction of the study, these categorizations treats the differences in impact between quarterly and annual reports on stock price, as well as differences in impact as a casual effect of company size and seasonal sensitivity. The results of the study show that quarterly reports have a stronger impact on the share price than annual reports.