<p>During the last decades major changes has occurred at the financial markets, meaning an increasing supply and a greater variation of financial instruments. The saving habits of the Swedish people have gone from traditional bank deposits to investments in equities, funds and bonds. All this together with the great rise in the stock market at the late 90’s has brought words like risk and return up-to-date, and is the background to the development of a new law concerning financial advising which come into force the 1th of July 2004. </p><p>The contents of the thesis can be described as three bricks, representing the survey questions. The thesis starts with descriptions of which risk- and return concepts that exists and which are used by the contemporary financial institutions. Further on, the thesis deals with the individuals’ perception of risk, in particular financial risk. To end with, details regarding how a message should be conveyed are given. The three bricks together fulfil the purpose of the thesis; To investigate how the meaning of financial risk in a simple and pedagogical way can be explained to a person not familiar with financial literature, and to develop questions that facilitate when an individuals risk profile is ascertained. </p><p>We have found that standard deviation is the risk concept that dominates in financial theory, and together with Value at Risk is the most common used in practise. Good knowledge about risk is required when explaining risk. It is important to describe the information in an attractive way and use examples and illustrations. For financial advisers it also is important to have knowledge about the human behaviour, because ascertain the clients risk profile is an important part of the risk explanation. A clients risk profile is best ascertain with so called open questions where both what the clients answer and how he or she answer can form the basis for the judgement.</p>

In the first of the three chapters in this thesis, the effects of overlapping board directorships on executive compensation are analyzed. In particular the possibility of more or less explicit agreements to reciprocally increase compensation levels, or the possibility that the personal relationships of board members and CEOs determine compensation levels are examined, with suggestive results. The second chapter documents the existence of economically important halo effects in the Australian consumer real estate marker. The final chapter evaluates the effects of blackout (or silent) periods in the UK on corporate insider behavior. Joakim Bång's main research interests are in empirical corporate finance, and in particular in executive compensation, corporate governance and behavioral finance. He is currently teaching at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan i Stockholm, 2011

During the last decades major changes has occurred at the financial markets, meaning an increasing supply and a greater variation of financial instruments. The saving habits of the Swedish people have gone from traditional bank deposits to investments in equities, funds and bonds. All this together with the great rise in the stock market at the late 90’s has brought words like risk and return up-to-date, and is the background to the development of a new law concerning financial advising which come into force the 1th of July 2004. The contents of the thesis can be described as three bricks, representing the survey questions. The thesis starts with descriptions of which risk- and return concepts that exists and which are used by the contemporary financial institutions. Further on, the thesis deals with the individuals’ perception of risk, in particular financial risk. To end with, details regarding how a message should be conveyed are given. The three bricks together fulfil the purpose of the thesis; To investigate how the meaning of financial risk in a simple and pedagogical way can be explained to a person not familiar with financial literature, and to develop questions that facilitate when an individuals risk profile is ascertained. We have found that standard deviation is the risk concept that dominates in financial theory, and together with Value at Risk is the most common used in practise. Good knowledge about risk is required when explaining risk. It is important to describe the information in an attractive way and use examples and illustrations. For financial advisers it also is important to have knowledge about the human behaviour, because ascertain the clients risk profile is an important part of the risk explanation. A clients risk profile is best ascertain with so called open questions where both what the clients answer and how he or she answer can form the basis for the judgement.

Purpose The main purpose of this paper is to investigate overconfidence and over-optimism in the market. This leads the reader to the question, are the analysts “right” concerning their forecasts? The reader will also get to understand various and sometimes forgotten factors that affect we human beings in our decision making when it comes to investing and analysing which is also known as the behavioural finance theory. Conclusion According to the results from my tests it seems that analysts of the S&amp;P500 are exaggerated by the problem of overconfidence and the over-optimistic biases. The analysis part of this study is confirming the discussed theory of anchoring and herding. Analysts tend to “follow the stream”, by evaluate the standard deviations between forecasts and the realized outcome, as well as the indexed analysts’ consensus estimations for twenty-four months of EPS.

La tesi si occupa di analizzare l'impianto teorico della finanza comportamentale per comprendere il processo decisionale degli investitori al fine di applicare tali principi alla consulenza finanziaria. / The thesis is concerned with studying the theoretical structure of behavioural finance for understanding investors' decisions and then applying the results to financial advisory.

Post earnings announcement drift (PEAD) is defined as the drift that occurs in a company’s share priceafter their earnings announcement. A company that reports earnings above (below) the analysts’expectations should, according to previous studies of PEAD, continue to drift upwards (downwards)after the announcement. (Ball &amp; Brown, 1968) The thesis purpose is to investigate if PEAD existed onthe Swedish market between 2006-2010. We test PEAD’s existences through; (i) creating portfolios inwhich companies’ abnormal return (AR) we expect to decline or increase, (ii) doing a multiple regressionanalysis to test if the drift is statistically significant. From the results of our study, we can neither acceptnor reject the hypothesis that PEAD existed on the Swedish market, although the multiple regressionanalysis prove a statistically significant result for companies’ AR that we expect to decline have drifted3,11% in a negative direction compared to our total sample.

Investmentföretag har funnits sedan urminnes tider men har under senare år ofta fått stå tillbaka som investeringsalternativ till fördel för aktiefonder. Detta är lite motsägelsefullt då svenska investmentföretagen historiskt har haft en högre avkastning än den svenska aktiefondförvaltaren. Större delen av forskningen kring investmentföretag har fokuserat på substansrabatten. Vi fann väldigt få studier som berört investmentföretagens risktagande, speciellt ur ett portföljperspektiv. För att underlätta för den individuella investeraren ville vi använda ett riskmått som är lätt att förstå. Valet föll därför på Value at Risk (VaR) som vi anser ger ett lättförståeligt mått på risken i en portfölj samtidigt som det valideras genom Basel II. Då investmentföretagen är väldigt heterogena med avseende på deras portföljsammansättningar och investeringsstrategier valde vi att genomföra en fallstudie på Industrivärden och Svolder. Valet av dessa företag möjliggjorde också en jämförelse mellan ett större och mindre investmentföretag. Vi ville undersöka och jämföra hur deras risktagande påverkas och förklaras utifrån olika faktorer, med utgångspunkt från den tidigare omkringliggande forskningen. De teoretiska utgångspunkterna hämtades från fyra olika områden, risk och portföljvalsteori, Behavioural Finance, Corporate Governance och makroekonomisk statistik. Vi valde att genomföra en kvantitativ studie för att undersöka Industrivärdens och Svolders risktagande. Studien är baserad på investmentföretagens kvartalsrapporter mellan 2000 till 2011. Utifrån vår referensram definierade vi 13 olika variabler som statistiskt prövades mot risktagandet med hjälp av multipla regressioner. Från våra resultat kunde vi konstatera att den makroekonomiska statistiken förklarade mest av investmentföretagens risktagande. Gemensamt för båda investmentföretagen var att industriproduktionen, Fed fund rate och konjunkturbarometern visade på ett signifikant samband med risktagande. Vi fann även indikationer på att den geografiska exponeringen för deras portföljer hade betydelse för att förklara risktagandet. Vår studie pekade också på att investmentföretagens risktagande visade upp en trend och korrelerade negativt med börsmarknaden.

Investors have been shown to be driven by emotional and psychological factors. This contradicts classical financial theories, for example the Efficient Market hypothesis which states that all investors act rationally. Behavioural Finance is an area of study which describes various psychological factors which may result in irrational investor behaviour. The primary question of the study is: which factors do operating people in the financial sector consider themselves to be influenced by? The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors which affect the process of creating forecasts or making financial decisions. The study examines in addition if there is a correlation between length of investor experience and overconfidence in forecasting accuracy and investment decision making. The study includes both quantitative and qualitative analysis. The study has a basis of survey data which has been supplemented with interviews to obtain further explanation of the results. The result showed that the factors being studied had varying degrees of influence on forecasting accuracy and investment decision making. It was further found through the survey undertaken that there is a moderate correlation between length of investor experience and overconfidence. This correlation was contradicted however by interview data, in which all interview participants proposed that overconfidence decreases the more experienced an investor or analyst is. It was argued by interviewees that increased experience affords an individual more realistic insight into their own abilities. / Investerare har påvisats drivas av emotionella och psykologiska faktorer vilket motsäger klassiska finansiella teorier som den Effektiva Marknadshypotesen vilket menar att alla investerare agerar rationellt. Finansiell Psykologi är således ett område som beskriver olika psykologiska faktorer som resulterar i att investerare agerar irrationellt. Tidigare forskning har visat att olika faktorer har påverkan inom finansbranschen och för att undersöka detta på den svenska marknaden skapades denna problemformulering: Vilka faktorer anser sig verksamma inom finansbranschen påverkas av? Syftet med studien är att undersöka vilka faktorer som bland annat påverkar processen att skapa aktieprognoser eller fatta finansiella beslut. Därtill ska det undersökas om det finns korrelation mellan antal år som verksam och Övertro på egna förmågan att göra korrekta prognoser eller fatta finansiella beslut. Studien innefattar en metodtriangulering vilket innebär att det både skett tillämpning av en kvantitativ och kvalitativ metod. Studien har haft en utgångspunkt i en surveyundersökning som genomfört för att sedan kompletterats med intervjuer för att få vidare förklaring till de resultat som undersökningen gav samt ge ytterligare synvinklar och kommentarer kring ämnet. Resultatet visade att de undersökta faktorerna i olika hög grad har påverkan. Det visade sig även via surveyundersökningen att det fanns ett moderat samband mellan antal år som verksam och Övertro. Samtliga intervjuade personer hade däremot en motsägande åsikt, de ansåg att Övertro minskar med antal år som verksam och hävdade att den erfarenhet man får på vägen får en som individ att bli mer realistiskt kring sin egen förmåga.

<p>Purpose</p><p>The main purpose of this paper is to investigate overconfidence and over-optimism in the market. This leads the reader to the question, are the analysts “right” concerning their forecasts? The reader will also get to understand various and sometimes forgotten factors that affect we human beings in our decision making when it comes to investing and analysing which is also known as the behavioural finance theory.</p><p>Conclusion</p><p>According to the results from my tests it seems that analysts of the S&P500 are exaggerated by the problem of overconfidence and the over-optimistic biases. The analysis part of this study is confirming the discussed theory of anchoring and herding. Analysts tend to “follow the stream”, by evaluate the standard deviations between forecasts and the realized outcome, as well as the indexed analysts’ consensus estimations for twenty-four months of EPS.</p>

The aim of this study is to investigate if individuals reacts rational to the announcement of negative profit warnings in the Swedish stock market. This is done by using an event study approach, investigating the corresponding abnormal returns and cumulative abnormal returns before, during, and after the announcement. Tests is also made to see whether qualitative and quantitative profit warnings and firm size has any impact on the cumulative abnormal returns. The sample consists of 176 profit warnings from 2008 to 2018. On the announcement day, the average abnormal return at day zero was -6.99 % and the average cumulative abnormal returns at day zero and one was -9.06 %. The results found also that smaller firms generate lower abnormal returns on the announcement date, but that there is no difference between qualitative and quantitative profit warnings. With small and insignificant cumulative abnormal returns before and after the announcement, the reached conclusion is that the market is efficient on aggregate level during the event of negative profit warnings.