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Investors herd when they follow the investment decisions of other market participants and ignore their own private information, causing asset valuations to deviate from their fundamentals. This paper examines herding in the South African equity market by examining the impact of investor fear on herding behavior, using a survivorship-bias free daily dataset of companies within the JSE All Share Index over the period: 3 May 2002 to 31 December 2019. Using the cross-sectional absolute deviation (CSAD), this study examines market-wide herding behavior over multiple sub-periods, which consists of before, during and after the global financial crisis of 2007/08. The results suggest no evidence of herding towards the market return; on the contrary there is evidence of ‘anti-herding' behaviour during periods of market stress. However, there is significant herding towards the domestic fear index, which becomes more pronounced during the crisis period. Furthermore, investor herd behaviour appears to be sensitive to spill-over effects from the US investor fear-gauge, suggesting interconnectedness with global financial markets. Therefore, these findings suggest that fear plays an important role in enforcing irrational behaviour.

Purpose: The purpose of the study is to examine how psychological factors affect shareholders and investors, and see which gender differences there are in their investment decisions. Method: The survey was based on a quantitative method with elements of qualitative aspects in form of a questionnaire. The questionnaire were answered by investors and shareholders at various websites for stock investor. The survey consisted of a total of 13 questions with both open and closed answers. Theory: The survey focused on four elements within behavioral finance. These factors are overconfidence, herd behavior, anchoring and familiarity bias. The efficient market hypothesis suggests full rationality which is the opposite of what behavioral finance advocates. Conclusion: Psychological factors affect investors and shareholders in their investment decisions. More men than women considered themselves to be better than average which indicates that they have a stronger overconfidence. In terms of herd behavior the respondents did not show that they follow the group when they have their own information, however, the opposite appeared when they had imperfect information. Women were affected by herd behavior more than men were. Women were affected more than men regarding familiarity bias. Anchoring also proved that the factor had an influence on the respondents but it was not a major difference between men and women.

This work is mainly focused on the environment of stock markets. It aims to identify some psychological and sociological factors relating to investors' behaviour which may help to justify occurrence of excessive movements in stock market prices resulting in price "bubbles" and stock market crashes. It emphasizes that the assumptions for the validity of the Efficient Markets Hypothesis based on dominant position of rational investors in stock markets have been empirically undermined by number of experiments and observations. As one of the most vigorous alternative challenging the Efficient Market Hypothesis is now considered the theory of behavioural finance stressing some imperfections of human behaviour which may substantially influence dynamics of stock market prices in both directions.

Bakgrund: Värdestrategier har historiskt sett ofta genererat överavkastning relativt index. Huruvida en värdestrategi lyckas eller ej återspeglas i dess förmåga att identifiera och utnyttja felprissättningar på aktiemarknaden. Å andra sidan menar den effektiva marknadshypotesen att investeringsstrategier inte kan överavkasta marknaden via strategin i sig, utan att eventuell överavkastning beror på slumpen. Av dessa anledningar blir det intressant att analysera huruvida Greenblatts (2010) The Magic Formula kan generera överavkastning gentemot marknaden. Dessutom blir det intressant att testa om en modifierad strategi har en högre sannolikhet att lyckas med detta.  Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att analysera huruvida The Magic Formula-strategin, och en modifierad The Magic Formula-strategi kan överavkasta den svenska aktiemarknaden över tid.  Metod: Studien har en kvantitativ strategi med en deduktiv ansats och en longitudinell design. Historiska aktiekurser har hämtats för att testa strategierna, där två fiktiva portföljer har skapats. Resultatet av dessa portföljers prestation har sedan analyserats samt testats statistiskt.  Slutsats: Resultatet visade att The Magic Formula mellan 2011–2022 inte lyckades överavkasta index. En modifierad variant av The Magic Formula lyckades dock överavkasta index avsevärt. Skillnaderna i medelavkastning gick dock inte att säkerställa statistiskt, vilket betyder att den genererade över- och underavkastningen mycket möjligt kan ha varit slumpmässig.  Nyckelord: The Magic Formula, EMH, Aktiv portföljförvaltning, Värdeinvestering, Overconfidence, Riskuppfattning, Flockbeteende / Background: Value investing has historically often generated excess returns relative to index. Whether a value strategy succeeds is reflected in its ability to identify and exploit mispricings in the stock market. On the other hand, the effective market hypothesis indicates that investment strategies cannot overperform the market via the strategy by itself, but that any excess return is random. For these reasons, it would be interesting to analyze whether Greenblatt's (2010) The Magic Formula can generate excess returns relative to the market. In addition, it would be interesting to test whether a modified strategy has a higher probability of succeeding.  Purpose: The purpose of this study is to analyze whether The Magic Formula strategy, and a modified The Magic Formula strategy can outperform the Swedish stock market over time.  Method: The study has a quantitative strategy with a deductive approach and a longitudinal design. Historical stock quotes have been obtained to test the strategies, where two fictitious portfolios have been created. The result of these portfolios' performance has then been analyzed and statistically tested.  Conclusion: The results showed that The Magic Formula between 2011–2022 failed in overperforming the market. However, a modified version of The Magic Formula managed to outperform the index considerably. Though, the differences in average returns could not be ensured statistically, which means that the generated over- and underperformance may very well have been random.  Keywords: The Magic Formula, EMH, Active portfolio management, Value investing, Overconfidence, Risk perception, Herd behaviour

Background: The 12th of March 2020 the Stockholm stock market fell close to eleven percent, the biggest decline on the market in modern time, as a result of the Covid-19 virus. Earlier studies have found that many individual investors make ill-considered decisions during sharp price falls which don't benefit their economic interest and that every new financial crisis offers new possibilities to expand the understanding about what underlying factors that are behind the crisis. Studies about psychological shortcomings have earlier been conducted, but not in connection with a stock market crash as a result of a pandemic, which means that there is not much research within the area. Therefore, there is an incentive to investigate which psychological biases individual investors were affected by during the corona crisis. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to study how a number of Swedish individual investors acted on the stock market during the corona crisis and if it varies depending on how much capital they manage. Which of the psychological biases herd behaviour, the disposition effect, loss aversion and extrapolation bias the individual investors that were interviewed was affected by and how they reasoned during the sharp stock market decline in March 2020. Method: The thesis has been conducted by a qualitative method to fulfil its purpose. The data collection consists of 10 semi-structured interviews with Swedish individual investors and statistics from the stockbroker Avanza. An abductive approach has been adopted to be able to analyse the studied subject and reach a conclusion. Conclusion: The thesis finds that the actions of the investigated individual investors can be divided into three categories. The ones that sold all their stocks when the stock market declined rapidly, the ones that didn’t do anything and the ones that bought more stocks successively. There is no clear connection between managing more money and getting less affected by psychological biases. Furthermore, the respondents were partly affected by how much earlier experience they had, whereas the ones with less experience were to a greater extent affected by psychological biases.

Bakgrund: COVID-19-pandemin har kommit att påverka hela samhället och även fastighetsägarna. På grund av alltmer hemmavarande kom hemmet att få nya användningsområden och en större betydelse vilket har resulterat i förändrade boendepreferenser. På grund av dessa förändrade mönster hos kunder har fastighetsägarna mött nya utmaningar. Men hur dessa utmaningar har sett ut och vad det har inneburit för fastighetsägarna är ännu outforskat.  Syfte: Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka hur fastighetsägare med hyresbostadsbestånd har påverkats av COVID-19-pandemin.  Metod: Undersökningen har antagit en kvalitativ ansats där semistrukturerade intervjuer har legat till grund för datainsamlingen.   Resultat: Resultaten visar på hur kostnader kopplat till fastigheterna ökade, däribland vattenförbrukningen, städkostnaderna och sophanteringen. Vidare visar resultaten hur kundärendena kraftigt ökade under COVID-19-pandemin. Kundärendena kom att bestå av felanmälningar, rivnings- och underhållsanmälningar samt störningsärenden. För att möta kundernas ökade kontaktbehov kom digitaliseringen att få ett uppsving då mycket av tidigare dagligt arbete, kommunikation och service som har skett fysisk vilket resulterade i att det nu kom att behöva ersättas med digitala varianter under COVID-19-pandemin. Resultaten visar också på hur mycket av de förändringar som ägt rum kan förklaras av människans förändrade beteenden vilket grundar sig i att människan är ett flockdjur och är högst beroende av sin omgivning. / Background: The COVID-19-pandemic has come to affect the whole community including property owners. Due to the increasing number of people being at home, the home has been giving new uses and a bigger important, which has resulted in changed housing performances. Due to the this changed patterns at customers, property owners have faced new challenges. But what these challenges have looked like and what it has meant for property owners is still unexplored.    Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how property owners with rental housing stocks have been affected by the COVID-19-panddemic.  Method: The survey has adopted a quality approach where semi-structed interviews have been the bases for the data collection.  Results: The results show how costs associated with properties increased, including water consumption, cleaning costs and waste management. Furthermore, the results show how costumer cases sharply increased during the COVID-19-pandemic. The costumer cases came to consist of fault reports, demolition and maintenance reports and disturbance cases. To meet customer’ increase contact needs, digitalization got a boost as match of previously daily work, communication and service that have taken place physically, which resulted in it now having to be replaced with digital variants during the COVID-19-pandemic.     The results also show how much of the changes that have taken place can be explained by the people’s changed behaviours which are based on the fact that human is a herd animal and it is highly dependent on it is environment.

Insider trading has long been a controversial phenomenon in the financial world. Several studies have been conducted in the area where the studies have shown ambiguous results. In 2016, Finansipektionen amended the Insider Trading Act, namely that insiders need to report an insider transction within three days. Insiders ability to generate abnormal returns is considered to be in conflict with market efficiency.  This study examines insiders ability to generate abnormal returns on the First North Growth Market during the year 2020, where the sample consists of 47 observations. An eventstudy has been used to investigate the market reaction from the publication of insider trading. Multiple regression analysis has been applied to examine whether there is any difference in the abnormal return based on the position of the insider, the transactionsize of the insider tradingsize and the gender. The hypothesis tests have been answered with the help of a one-sided t-test and multiple regression analysis. A quantitative method and deductive approach have been used in the study where the researcher derived hypotheses based on previous research as well as theories such as the effective markethypothesis, the random-walk theory, the signalinghypothesis, behaviorbased financing and herdbehavior. This study shows that insiders generate abnormal returns during a short-term event window, but that there is no significant difference in the abnormal returns based on the insider’s position, transactionsize and gender. / Insynshandel har länge varit ett omdiskuterat fenomen inom finansvärlden. Flera studier har avlagts inom området som visat på tvetydiga resultat. År 2016 ändrade Finansinspektionen lagen om insynshandel, nämligen att insynspersoner behöver rapportera en insynstransaktion inom tre dagar. Insynspersoners möjlighet till att generera abnormal avkastning anses gå i strid mot marknadseffektiviteten. Denna studie undersöker insynspersoners möjlighet till att generera abnormal avkastning på First North Growth Market under året 2020 där urvalet består av 47 observationer. En eventstudie har använts för att undersöka marknadsreaktionen vid publiceringen av insynshandel. Multipel regressionsanalys har tillämpats för att undersöka ifall det finns någon skillnad i den abnormala avkastningen baserad på befattningen på insynspersonen, transaktionsstorleken av insynshandeln och kön. Hypotesprövningarna har besvarats med hjälp av ett ensidigt t-test samt multipel regressionsanalys. En kvantitativ metod och deduktiv ansats har använts i studien där forskaren härlett hypoteser utifrån tidigare forskning samt teorier som den effektiva marknadshypotesen, random-walk teorin, signaleringshypotesen, beteendebaserad finansiering och flockbeteende. Denna studie visar att insynspersoner genererar abnormal avkastning under ett kortsiktigt eventfönster men att det inte existerar någon signifikant skillnad på den abnormala avkastningen baserat på befattningen av insynspersonen, transaktionsstorleken och kön.