I analyze a large number of investment decisions based on theories that have been developed and formalized over the past 50 years. Previous work in this field unveils a number of biases which affect ones choices when the outcome is uncertain. In my thesis I find evidence of these already known biases and focus on finding rational explanations for their existence. I also introduce two unexplored biases; the homeboy bias and the menu bias. The results clearly indicate that sophisticated investors are generally less subject to these biases. Since pension schemes in many nations are shifting towards defined contribution schemes, investment decisions and risk preferences will be of great consequence to investors’ personal economy and ability to consume, affecting the economy in general. It is therefore of great importance that policy makers do all that they can to increase investors sophistication and create a playing field which facilitates economically sound investing.

The landscape of cancer care is evolving and as a result nursing care continues to develop and respond to the changing needs of oncology patients and their families. There is a paucity of qualitative research examining the experience of being an oncology nurse on an inpatient unit. Therefore, a qualitative study using an interpretive phenomenological approach has been undertaken to discover the lived experience of being an oncology nurse. In-depth tape recorded interviews has been conducted with six oncology nurses who worked on two adult inpatient oncology units. Van Manen’s (1990) interpretive phenomenological approach has been used to analyze the data by subjecting the transcripts to an analysis both line by line and as a whole. The overarching theme of the interviews is: Investing to Make a Difference. The themes that reflect this overarching theme are: Caring for the Whole Person, Being an Advocate, Walking a Fine Line, and Feeling Like You are Part of Something Good. Oncology nurses provide care for their patients through a holistic lens that further enhances how they come to know their patients. Over time, relationships with patients and families develop and these nurses share that balancing the emotional aspects of their work is key in being able to continue to invest in their work and in these relationships. Their investment is further evident as oncology nurses continuously update their knowledge, for example, of treatment regimes, medication protocols, and as they champion their patients wishes and needs. As nurses develop their own identities as oncology nurses, they in turn enhance the team with their emerging skill and knowledge. These research findings serve to acknowledge the meaning of oncology nurses’ work and inform the profession’s understanding of what it means to be an oncology nurse.

Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) issues are becoming more and more significant for comprehensive evaluation of companies responsible investing activities. Over the years, the growth in corporate responsibility to the society and policies towards environmental consciousness has necessitated the need for comprehensive ESG integration into investment decision-making process and the impact of such activities on company‟s financial performance. Although, studies suggest that there is an increasing trend in ESG considerations among large-cap companies and public investors, little have been written about the link with private investors. Venture capital and private equity investors have an important role in shaping current innovative companies to become future leaders in the market and therefore posses the ability to influence entrepreneurs towards sustainability by incorporating ESG issues in their investment selection processes. This study sought to find out if venture capital and private equity investors consider ESG issues in their activities and if so, do cultural and institutional contexts in which they operate have any effect on their considerations? We have used two of the most advanced venture capital and private equity industries in the world – USA and UK to analysed the response of this sector to ESG issues. Essential ESG factors have been coded using content analysis method for 122 companies from both countries relating to how they practise and integrate environmental, social and corporate governance issues into their investment decision process. Statistical multivariate analysis was conducted with SPSS to analyse data gathered. Our findings revealed that in general venture capital and private equity investors are responding to calls for ESG considerations in their activities, with almost all studied companies reporting some form of ESG issues on their corporate website. However, majority of them are just at the initial stage of mentioning with little information on how it is been used as part of investment selection criteria. Results of the study also show that, investors in environmental related products and services (Cleantech) have higher levels of ESG considerations than other investors. An indication that investor‟s who finance innovative companies that provide solutions to current environmental problems do impact more positively on society. In addition, findings also confirmed earlier studies that differences in cultural and institutional contexts between countries do affect behaviour and values of companies. Thus, a country with strong regulations and incentives towards sustainability will impact on corporate culture that will increase ESG considerations among venture capital and private equity investors. Therefore, our study concluded that there is an appreciable levels of ESG consideration among venture capital and private equity investor‟s, however investors need to increase their considerations by committing more resources to environmental solutions and social issues such as clean technologies and community philanthropy.

Recent studies claims that Sweden has the lowest returns on education compared to other OECD countries. Other research made in the subject tend to focus on the gains from education, but forget to calculate the costs, both direct cost such as material, accommodation and food, but also opportunity costs from not working instead of investing in education. The purpose of this thesis is to study if an investment in an education is an effective way of monetary utility maximizing in Sweden, in other words income. This thesis will investigate whether education will be a profitable investment, and if so how many years of employment it will take an individual to gain from that investment. The Human Capital theory is the theoretical framework of this thesis and the result is in Swedish Crowns. This research quantifies that an education is an effective way to income maximizing and men’s payback time in monetary terms are more likely to be shorter than female’s.

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Sharpekvoten är ett av de mest frekvent använda prestationsmåtten för fonder. Kvoten beskriver en fonds riskjusterade avkastning genom att dividera dess överavkastning med dess standardavvikelse. Måttet har emellertid fått kritik på flera områden och visat sig vara missvisande under vissa scenarion, något som även denna studie påvisar. Studien bygger på en kvantitativ metod där ett stickprov används för att beskriva den studerade populationen; Sverigefonder. Studiens resultat visar att Sverigefonders avkastning inte är normaldistribuerad, något som är ett grundantagande vid Sharpekvots-beräkningen då fondens standardavvikelse används. Resultaten visar att samtliga observationers avkastningsdistribution antingen är positiv eller negativs skev, vilket leder till att standardavvikelsen konsekvent över- eller underskattar tillgångens risk. Tidigare studier betonar att även avkastningsdistributionens skevhet har betydelse vid investeringar. Denna aspekt återspeglas dock inte i den traditionella Sharpekvoten och författaren presenterar därför en egen modifikation av måttet där avkastningsdistributionens skevhet adderas. Studiens resultat bör tolkas ur ett behavior-finance-perspektiv, där människor antas ha olika tidshorisont för investeringar, inte antas agera rationellt, samt påverkas känslomässigt av marknadshändelser. Med det som utgångspunkt adderar avkastningsdistributionens skevhet värdefull information för investeraren, bortom fondens medelavkastning och standardavvikelse som enligt modern portföljteori är de enda två aspekterna en investerare har preferenser om. En ytterligare aspekt som påvisas i studien är att det tycks finnas en osund informationsassymetri mellan spararna och fondkommissionerna, samt strukturella incitament för att behålla denna. Detta kan ses som en förklaringsgrund till det minskade förtroendet som växt fram för de aktivt förvaltade fonderna. Författaren föreslår ökad transparens från fondkommissionernas sida och ser en presentation av en skevhetsjusterad Sharpekvot som ett steg på vägen. Studien bidrar till tidigare forskning genom att empiriskt påvisa fördelen med en modifikation av Sharpekvoten som adderar informationsvärde för investerarna. / The Sharpe ratio is one of the most frequently used performance measures for funds. The ratio is describing a fund’s risk adjusted return by dividing its excess return by its standard deviation. The measure has been subject to critique in several areas and has shown to be misleading under certain scenarios, something that this study also indicates. The study is conducted based on a quantitative method where a sample is used to describe the target population; Sverigefonder. The results of the study shows that Sverigefonders return is not normally distributed, something that is elementary assumed when calculating the Sharpe ratio by the usage of the standard deviation. The results show that all the observations’ return distribution either is positively or negatively skewed. The implication of that is that the standard deviation consistently either over- or under estimates the asset’s risk. Previous studies emphasize that the skewness of the return distribution is of importance as well when investing. This aspect is not reflected though in the traditional Sharpe ratio and the author is therefor presenting an own modification of the performance measure where the skewness is added to the ratio. The results of the study should be interpreted from a behavior finance perspective, where investors are assumed to have different time horizons for investing, act irrational, and reacting emotionally to market events. With those aspects as the premise, the skewness of the return distribution is adding valuable information for the investor, beyond the fund’s average return and standard deviation, which are the only two aspects that the investor has a preference regarding according to modern portfolio theory. One additional aspect that is shown in the study is that there seems to exist an unhealthy information asymmetry between the investors and the fund commissions, and structural incentives to keep it. This can be seen as a suggestion of explanation to the lowered trust for the actively managed funds. The author is proposing enhanced transparency for the fund commissions and sees the presenting of a skewness-adjusted Sharpe ratio as a step in that direction. This study is contributing to previous research by empirically showing the advantage off presenting a modification of the Sharpe ratio, which adds additional information to the investors.

Bakgrund: Den effektiva marknadshypotesen är ett vida accepterat begrepp inom den finansiella sfären men trots sin centrala roll har den fått motstå mycket kritik. Ett flertal anomalier har identifierats vilka är en kritik till marknadens effektivitet. I takt med anomaliernas framväxt har intresset för investeringsstrategier ökat. Går det att generera en överavkastning genom en förbestämd strategi där marknadens ineffektivitet utnyttjas? Vi finner det därför av intresse att studera Greenblatts (2010) Magic Formula och om det är möjligt att generera en överavkastning genom att tillämpa investeringsstrategin. Syfte: Studien syfte är att analysera huruvida investeringsstrategin Magic Formula kan generera överavkastning jämfört med den globala aktiemarknaden samt om det föreligger några prestationsskillnader mellan de olika europeiska aktiemarknaderna. Vidare ämnar studien analysera hur ombalanseringsfrekvensen samt val av tidsperiod påverkar Magic Formula-portföljens avkastning. Metod: För att genomföra studien har en kvantitativ strategi med en deduktiv ansats använts. Det har genomförts en tidsserieundersökning där portföljer har konstruerats och analyserats baserat på dess avkastning och risk som statistiskt säkerställts genom parvisa t-test samt regressioner. Studien har genomförts på den europeiska marknaden under tidsperioden 2007-04-01 till 2017-04-01. Slutsats: Av 18 Magic Formula-portföljer presterar 14 portföljer sämre än jämförelseindex, sett till årliga medelavkastning samt total avkastning. Tre av de 14 portföljerna gav en signifikant lägre avkastning. Finanskrisen hade stor påverkan på resultaten. Exkluderas denna tidsperiod presterade endast 11 portföljer sämre, dock utan statistisk signifikans i resultaten. Studie har även funnit att en längre tidsperiod mellan ombalanseringarna tenderar att generera en högre avkastning. / Background: The efficient market hypothesis is a widely spread concept throughout the financial sphere, but despite of its central roll it have had to withstand a lot of criticism. Anomalies have been identified which are a criticism against the markets efficiency. The interest of investment strategies has grown as of the emergence of the anomalies. Is it possible to generate abnormal returns through a pre-determined strategy, where the market inefficiency is exploited? We therefore find it interesting to study Greenblatt’s (2010) Magic Formula and if it is possible to generate abnormal returns by implementing the investment strategy. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to analyze whether the investment strategy Magic Formula can generate abnormal returns compared with the global stock market, and if it is possible to identify any performance differences between the European stock markets. Furthermore, the study aims to analyze how the re-balancing frequency and the time period effects returns from the Magic Formula. Methodology: To implement the study we have used a quantitative strategy with a deductive design. We have implemented a time series analysis where portfolios have been constructed and analyzed based on its return and risk. The results have been statistically tested through pairwise t-tests and regressions. The study is conducted on the European market from 2007-04-01 to 2017-04-01. Conclusion: 14 of the 18 Magic Formula portfolios have performed worse than the benchmark, according to annual average return and total return. Three of the 14 portfolios have had a significant lower return. The financial crisis affected the results greatly. If we excluded this time period only 11 portfolios performed worse, however without statistical support behind the results. Our results also suggest that a less frequent re-balancing of the portfolio generates higher return than a more frequent re-balancing.

The goal of this thesis is to find out if there is a relationship between company capital productivity and investment activity. Evaluation is done on a single sector of the national economy steel construction and steel goods manufacturing, with the exception of machines. In the first half of the practical part of this thesis, an analysis of capital productivity, investing activity, structure of long-time owned property and value added is done. After this, by using correlation and regression analysis, the relationship between variables capital productivity and investment activity is tested. For evaluation, the data from database Albertina, a database that collects data about companies in Czech Republic and Slovakia, are used. All tests are made in the Microsoft Excel and Statistica 12. This paper is supported by the Grant Agency of the University of South Bohemia GAJU 053/2016/S: Management of Innovations and Competitiveness of Small and Medium-sized Companies.

Submitted by MFEE Mestrado Profissional em Finanças e Economia Empresarial da EPGE (mfee@fgv.br) on 2015-02-24T19:52:06Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Daniel Pádua Versão Final.pdf: 2926735 bytes, checksum: 3a118ec117860cba182feae37fa5226f (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Marcia Bacha (marcia.bacha@fgv.br) on 2015-03-03T19:10:36Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Daniel Pádua Versão Final.pdf: 2926735 bytes, checksum: 3a118ec117860cba182feae37fa5226f (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Marcia Bacha (marcia.bacha@fgv.br) on 2015-03-03T19:11:22Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Daniel Pádua Versão Final.pdf: 2926735 bytes, checksum: 3a118ec117860cba182feae37fa5226f (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-03T19:11:40Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Daniel Pádua Versão Final.pdf: 2926735 bytes, checksum: 3a118ec117860cba182feae37fa5226f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-01-29 / Wahal and Cruz (2009) published an essay adding to the literature on behavior fínance, unifying the concepts of momentum, comovement and style investing as tools for return predictability. They discovered that assets possessing larger comovement offered higher returns as opposed to those having low comovement. We endeavored to reflect their methodology to the Brazilian market in a matmer applicable scenario of low liquidity and reduced amount of asscts that are charactetistics o f our stock market. Our results did not present the same tendency of the original essay, but we verifíed that, albeit in a limited way, it is possible to explore profítable strategies by means ofusing this structure. / Wahal e Yavuz (2009) divulgaram trabalho ampliando a literatura da teoria de finanças comportamentais, unindo os conceitos de momento, estilo e comovimento como ferramentas de previsibilidade de retorno em investimentos. Eles descobriram que ativos com maior comovimento apresentam retornos mais elevados que os de baixo comovimento. Buscamos replicar a sua metodologia ao mercado brasileiro de maneira aplicável a realidade de baixa liquidez e quantidade reduzida de ativos do nosso mercado de ações. Nossos resultados não apresentaram a mesma tendência do trabalho original, porém verificamos, ainda que de forma limitada, a possibilidade de explorar estratégias lucrativas usando este arcabouço.

The theme of this thesis is comparison of mutual funds from international perspective.The funds compared are situated in countries of the European Union and the United States of America. The funds of the EU are situated in these countries: Germany, France, Great Britain, and the Czech Republic. The comparison was done in five-year term, and three-year term. To compare the funds, the theory of modern portfolio was applied. The funds were compared on basis of returns, risk and risk-to return.