This doctoral dissertation addresses the biological and psychological components of financial decision-making for individuals. As such, it directly examines intrinsic human traits that are related to financial performance, rather than following the standard approach of inferring said traits from aggregate market data. Specifically, this dissertation examines the relation of personality traits, testosterone levels, and cortisol levels to financial choices and outcome under short-term (trading) and long-term (investing) investment horizons. Subjects are recruited from advanced courses in finance at Florida International University. During the course of a semester (fourteen weeks) they complete a portfolio formation and rebalancing task, and answer a personality questionnaire. Additionally, subjects complete a series of trading simulations during the early morning of a preset date, and provide saliva samples. The saliva samples are analyzed for levels of testosterone and cortisol at a University lab facility. The relation of personality scores, testosterone levels, and cortisol levels to financial choices and outcomes is analyzed via linear regressions and Student’s t-tests. The results show that personality factors associated with detrimental life quality, such as paranoia, are related to long-term investment decisions associated with increased portfolio risk and return. Additionally, the levels of testosterone and cortisol play a significant role in initial portfolio formation decisions, but not in subsequent portfolio allocation decisions. As such, the results show that hormone levels contribute to initial long-term investment choices, but personality traits play a much greater role in portfolio maintenance. Alternatively, the results show that testosterone and cortisol levels play a significant role in many aspects of short-term investment, including the decision to buy or to sell, and timing preferences. Overall, the results show that hormone levels and personality traits play significant and distinctive roles in many aspects of financial decision-making. Therefore, this dissertation provides important implications for the practice and the study of finance, including information that could be used to make more rational financial choices, and to develop financial models with more realistic assumptions about investor behavior.

Previous research on investor preferences focused mainly on the relationship between socio-demographic variables and risk tolerance. This study extends the research in this area by focusing on three aspects of investor preferences: risk tolerance, time horizon, and estate intentions. The objective is to provide a more comprehensive model of investor preferences, including both psychological and attitudinal variables. This study addresses the following: Are socio-demographic variables sufficient to predict investor preferences? Is there a difference between males and females? How much additional variance is explained by including political ideology, positive psychology attitudes, and pro-social attitudes? Are these attitudinal variables simply additive or are they interactive? Data were collected from MBA students and senior undergraduate students in a major research university in South Florida. A scale was developed to measure estate intentions, a construct that has never been examined in management studies. The findings supported the expectation that psychological variables would be positively correlated with the dependent variables. However, I expected that pro-social attitudes would be a moderator variable, and this expectation was not realized. This dissertation contributes to the investor preferences field in several ways. First, it demonstrates the importance of psychological and attitudinal variables in explaining investor preferences. I also found differences between males and females regarding risk tolerance. This study can provide financial advisers with a deeper understanding of the importance of psychological and attitudinal variables in determining investor behavior. Finally, the results of this study augment and expand stakeholder theory. This study brings the investor into the stakeholder model, enhancing the descriptive, explanatory, and predictive capabilities of stakeholder theory. Future research could replicate this study using real investors in different locations for cultural variation, or using a panel of respondents for a longitudinal study.

The objective of this diploma thesis is to introduce the sector of Private Equity and Venture Capital which is aimed to finance perspective companies that are not publicly traded. The first chapter presents the development of sector and main featuring players on the market. The second chapter explains phases of the investment process. The topic of the third chapter is analysis of the sector in terms of development trends and comparisom of particular types of investment as well as comparison of the main markets which are the USA and Europe. The goal of the last chapter is to present and analyze the Alternative Investment Market in London as a new market for the venture capital backed companies.

The aim of my thesis is to describe the functioning of capital markets in the Czech Republic and investment opportunities these markets offer the people of the Czech Republic . In the individual chapters, I will describe the potential risks that accompany the investment instruments, and recommend what position relative to the detected data on individual investments take. In conclusion, I will acquaint the reader with the attitude of Czech households for investments and debt and recommend what investment portfolio should take in order to ensure smooth functioning.

This Masters thesis analysis attitude and behavior of consumer in a role of investor in financial market to the loss or how to avoid the risk of future losses .In the theoretical part describes the theory needed to understand the other part, here in after referred to as tools and methods that are used to reduce the risk of loss.

Corporate governance issues have become increasingly important to financial managers and shareholders. Firms that are plagued by poor performance, incompetent managers, or excess agency costs have become the subject of a dramatic increase in shareholder activism. Dissident shareholders, who are unable to launch costly takeover bids or proxy contests, have initiated a process of governance reform through the use of shareholder sponsored proposals. Shareholder proposals are a direct attempt to reverse operating or voting policies, such as a proposal to repeal a classified board. Managers announce shareholder proposals in a proxy statement and typically include a vote recommendation against the proposal. In the first essay, I find an unfavorable stock price reaction to the announcement of a shareholder proposal. In some cases, however, management supports the proposal and negotiates an agreement with the proposing shareholder. Stock prices react favorably to a settlement announcement. If managers are willing to negotiate with shareholders, they are perceived to be acting in the best interest of shareholders. If managers are unwilling, shareholders believe a severe agency problem exists. In the second essay, the effect that ownership structure has on voting outcomes of shareholder proposals is examined. I find a direct relationship between the percentage of votes cast in favor of the proposal and levels of institutional ownership. There is an inverse relationship between the percentage of votes and managerial ownership and firm size. Large firms with powerful owner-managers present the greatest obstacle to the success of shareholder proposals. The repeal of shareholder rights plans is one of the most frequently used shareholder proposals. By adopting the rights plan, managers increase the probability of defeating a takeover, but increase their power in negotiating with a potential acquiring firm. In the third essay, I find that firms who combine a rights plan with high debt levels construct a powerful defense against a hostile takeover. Shareholders target these high debt firms and design proposals to repeal the rights plan.

Uppsatsen ämnar undersöka om ålder har en påverkan på prospektteorin, investor attention och flockbeteende hos investerare. Uppsatsen bidrar till forskningen genom att tydliggöra om det finns en påverkan och vilken påverkan ålder har på de tre beteendena. Metoden består av att en enkät skickas ut på utvalda aktieforum där respondenterna får svara på påståenden och andra frågor. Totalt svarade 101 respondenter på enkäten varav 100 av svaren används och analyseras i uppsatsen. Resultatet visar att ålder endast har ett positivt signifikant samband med flockbeteende. En av orsakerna kan vara den försämrade kognitiva förmågan som uppstår med en äldre ålder. Det finns dock inget signifikant samband mellan ålder och prospektteorin respektive investor attention. Vad resultatet innebär diskuteras vidare i uppsatsens diskussion. I slutsatsen presenteras även framtida forskning som kan utveckla och ge bättre förklaringar till dessa beteenden.

The rise of social media and the “retail investor” has completely shifted the investing landscape. A new paradigm has been created where people have easier access than ever to invest in the stock market from the convenience of their phones. This is accomplished through zero-commission trading apps, like Robinhood, meaning less starting capital is required. This research is used to investigate the relationship between the frequency of social media mentions on Twitter and a particular stock’s volatility. It is hypothesized that Twitter mentions will affect stock volatility. This will be done using the qualitative data analyzing tool AtlasTi to calculate the frequency in which a particular stock ticker is mentioned on Twitter during trading hours. Using AtlasTi, the number of mentions for twenty-eight individual stocks was monitored twice a day for twenty total trading days, or approximately one month. This resulted in forty individual time frames of data, or 1,120 total data points. The volatility of the stock will then be calculated using data from Yahoo! Finance. Using panel data analysis, the number of stock mentions on Twitter will be cross-checked with the volatility of the correlating stock under the same time period to evaluate the relationship between the two variables. While our final analysis has not yet been calculated, it is expected that our results will show a relationship between heavily mentioned stocks and increased volatility. It is intended that our research will aid future investors when making decisions on how to invest in assets heavily mentioned on social media.

Non-professional investors often rely on information obtained from social media to make investment decisions. Extant literature has not examined the most effective strategy for the target company to counter the rumors so that investors will be more willing to continue investing in the target firm. Drawing on source credibility theory and the moral intensity model, I propose that the most effective strategy would vary given different agents who are selected to counter the rumor. After conducting a 2 x 3 (counter-rumor source x counter-rumor strategy) experiment with 272 non-professional investors recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk, my study shows that when an internal agent (e.g., the CEO) acts as a counter-rumor source, shareholders are more willing to invest in the company when the internal agent utilizes a denial strategy rather than a reassociation or a questioning strategy. In contrast, when an external agent (e.g., a famous food blogger) serves as the counter-rumor source, the external agent can also use a questioning strategy in addition to a denial strategy to motivate shareholders to be more willing to invest in the company; however, the external agent still needs to avoid from engaging a reassociation strategy. Moderated serial-mediation analysis shows that the persuasiveness of the counter-rumor information and investors' perceived rumor intensity serially mediate the effect of counter-rumor source on investors' willingness to invest, and this effect is conditioned on the different strategy used to counter the rumor. Overall, the main effect of counter-rumor source suggests that external agents are perceived as more persuasive, which leads investors to perceive less rumor intensity, making them more willing to invest in the target company. The results of my paper can thus inform companies' social media policy.

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