The Swedish household’s savings has increased the last couple of years, according to Statistiska centralbyrån. But the amount of households that trades on the stock market has decreased from the year 2012 to 2013. The diminished interest in stock trading carries a risk by leading to a smaller yield for the private savers, and also effect the business development and the economic growth. High brokerage fees will aggravate the ability to attract venture capital. A decrease in stock trading can also lead to a professional market, where new companies will find it difficult to get listed on the stock market.

Previous research has shown that there are underlying factors that affects an investor's risk preference. To increase the Swedish private investors' interest in trading on the stock market, it’s going to require an act within the financial sector. Professional asset managers are in need to increase their understanding for Swedish investors risk tolerance, and adapt investment strategies accordingly to their preferences.

The majority of previous research have a focus on U.S. investors and therefor there are an interest to investigate Swedish investors risk tolerance, to see if the results show differences. This study investigate which factors in life influence an investor's risk tolerance and to which level. This study has focused on the factors gender, age, income, education lever, employment, and relationship status, and used Grable and Lytton's 13-item instrument to measure the investor’s risk tolerance.

The study is based on a quantitative research method, where an electronic questionnaire survey has been conducted on 234 respondents via Internet forums. The result shows that there is a correlation between underlying factors and an investor's risk tolerance. Gender and income were the variables with the clearest effect, where the results showed that men possesses a higher tolerance for risk, as compared to women. The result also shows that risk tolerance tends to increase with a higher household income. It also emerged that a more secure employment tends to lead to a higher risk tolerance, and that people who lives in a relationship tolerate more risk, than people who are single. In contrast, the result showed that a higher level of education had no impact on the investor’s attitude to risk.

The study showed that men tends to prefer capital investments with more risk, and claims to have higher knowledge about trading in comparison with women. It also emerged that a large percentage of the respondents wish to place their capital in more risky investments, then they currently do today. By comparing the study with previous research, the result demonstrated that Swedish investors are more sensitive to risk than U.S. investors.