Finns det ett samband mellan börsnoterade företags resultat och dess värdering?
Background: What is a share and what determines the value of a company? This is a constant issue that many in the financial world are facing. Many argue that there has been some decoupling between stock valuation and how the company in question is developing operationally after the financial crisis that the world faced during 2008-2009.Problem: It is important to distinguish between the company and the share. A company that is good and well maintained may not be worth buying only because of it. The share is judged by other elements also. It can be a problem when people doesn´t make this distinction.Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to test the following hypothesis: The higher operating profit (performance) a company has, the higher will the valuation for the share on the market be.Question: Is there a relationship between a listed company's operating performance and its share valuation?Method: In our study we will focus on figures from annual reports, called "hard" data and therefore it is most natural to make use of the quantitative research approach. One reason that we chose the deductive approach is that it usually forms the basis for our research strategy.Theory: We use key performance indicators that measure the operational development of the business and sets them against the key indicators for the stock valuation. The following ratios are used for operational activities; Solidity, revenue growth, return on equity and return on capital employed. The figures for stock valuation is EV/EBIT and P/E-ratio.Conclusion: There is a weak positive correlation between a company's operational development and its share valuation, but it is very weak when looking at a sample group as a whole. In individual cases, there is relatively strong correlation.