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.

Hedge funds? importance within the financial system has during the most recent years increased dramatically. These special funds are unique instruments that differ from traditional mutual funds in a variety of ways, however especially in how they expect returns. Due to the fact that hedge funds are able to hold short positions they possess the possibility to become market neutral investment vehicles.Because of this possibility to sustain positions neutral to market fluctuations, the concept of absolute returns became a unique selling point for hedge fund managers and promises of stable returns unchallenged by market conditions was assured. This research paper aims to examine the theory of absolute returns in hedge funds by examining hedge funds from the Nordic region during the last years of economic turmoil that has occurred by  analyzing the results from their strategies, partially by quantitative measurements as well as qualitative.  The results show that none of hedge fund strategies managed to deliver absolute returns over the chosen period..

Hedge funds have the past few years become an increasingly popular investment alternative and in the last decade hedge fund assets managed have quadrupled to USD 2000 billion, a growth rate of around 25-30% per year. One explanation for this substantial increase is that hedge funds' minimum limits on capital invested has declined, which have made ??them available to retail investors. The recent turmoil in financial markets has also contributed to investors finding their way to hedge funds, whose goal is to generate stable returns regardless of how the market develops.Using Sharpe?s, Treynor?s and Jensen's performance measures, I have investigated whether hedge funds manage to generate higher risk-adjusted returns than traditional managed funds.

The primary purpose of this paper is to find the determinants of first-day returns on the Stockholm Stock Exchange. Our research will cover the 1996 ? 2004 periods. Our secondary purpose is intended to find a profitable trading strategy with regard to future IPOs on the Stockholm Stock Exchange. By using regression analysis, focusing on company specific factors and the IPO process, we hope to find a function exhibiting statistical significance, determining future first-day returns from which construction of a profitable trading strategy will be possible.

SEB Merchant Banking provides to its institutional customers a true market neutral product called Dynamic Manager Alpha (DMA). The DMA is constructed by a long position in an exceptionally well performing mutual fund and a beta adjusted short position in an appropriate index. The key to making the product market neutral is adjusting with the correct beta, since the beta changes, it is very important to have a good model for predicting beta in the future.This master thesis begins with describing what beta is in a CAPM sense. It then continues with recognizing the so called ?Two Beta Trap?, which separates two kinds of beta.

SEB Merchant Banking provides to its institutional customers a true market neutral product called Dynamic Manager Alpha (DMA). The DMA is constructed by a long position in an exceptionally well performing mutual fund and a beta adjusted short position in an appropriate index. The key to making the product market neutral is adjusting with the correct beta, since the beta changes, it is very important to have a good model for predicting beta in the future.This master thesis begins with describing what beta is in a CAPM sense. It then continues with recognizing the so called ?Two Beta Trap?, which separates two kinds of beta.

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.

SEB Merchant Banking provides to its institutional customers a true market neutral product called Dynamic Manager Alpha (DMA). The DMA is constructed by a long position in an exceptionally well performing mutual fund and a beta adjusted short position in an appropriate index. The key to making the product market neutral is adjusting with the correct beta, since the beta changes, it is very important to have a good model for predicting beta in the future.This master thesis begins with describing what beta is in a CAPM sense. It then continues with recognizing the so called ?Two Beta Trap?, which separates two kinds of beta.

SEB Merchant Banking provides to its institutional customers a true market neutral product called Dynamic Manager Alpha (DMA). The DMA is constructed by a long position in an exceptionally well performing mutual fund and a beta adjusted short position in an appropriate index. The key to making the product market neutral is adjusting with the correct beta, since the beta changes, it is very important to have a good model for predicting beta in the future.This master thesis begins with describing what beta is in a CAPM sense. It then continues with recognizing the so called ?Two Beta Trap?, which separates two kinds of beta.

SEB Merchant Banking provides to its institutional customers a true market neutral product called Dynamic Manager Alpha (DMA). The DMA is constructed by a long position in an exceptionally well performing mutual fund and a beta adjusted short position in an appropriate index. The key to making the product market neutral is adjusting with the correct beta, since the beta changes, it is very important to have a good model for predicting beta in the future.This master thesis begins with describing what beta is in a CAPM sense. It then continues with recognizing the so called ?Two Beta Trap?, which separates two kinds of beta.

This thesis studies the relationship between risk and the first day returns of Initial Public Offerings (IPO) by assessing the risk of each issuing company with a risk model that combine financial key ratios of importance. The study is based on 92 IPO?s that were made on the Stockholm OMX stock exchange during the period of 1997-2009. The point of departure was to investigate if the uncertainty created by the asymmetric information between investors and the issuing firm could be captured by predicting the possibility of failure in the future. This has been studied by applying Skogsvik?s probability of failure model on the 92 issuing firms.

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.

In this thesis, the Swedish venture capital market and its profitability is analyzed. Venture capital is defined as capital that is invested in the early stages of a company's life cycle, in the two investment stages seed/start-up and expansion.A common view is that the profitability of Swedish venture capital has not been, is not and will probably not become high either. With this in mind, we try to answer to the following questions in this thesis:? What has the profitability of Swedish venture capital actually been historically?? Which reasons could be found in order to explain the historical returns for Swedish venture capital, and which factors has been identified in international comparative studies between venture capital markets?In order to answer these questions, data showing historical returns for the Swedish, European and American venture capital market has been gathered, an extensive literature study has been performed, and three interviews with participants from the Swedish venture capital market has been conducted.We conclude that the historical returns of Swedish venture capital is in line with the general view that they have been low. We also see a trend where Swedish venture capital funds that are not specialized in one investment stage generate lower returns than more specialized funds.

The purpose of the study is to investigate whether insiders generate an abnormal return compared with other investors on the Swedish Stock Market. This abnormal return is defined as the cumulative average abnormal return (CAAR). The other purpose is to investigate whether it would be profitable for ?outsiders? to mimic the transactions of insider trades. The results indicate several significant abnormal returns on insider trades, especially on buy transactions.

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.