This paper aims to investigate how financial variables and exogenous crises influence firms’ financial performance, and how these factors may help managers in decision-making to increase their firm’s wealth. The dynamic interactions among variables were studied by applying a panel vector autoregressive model using annual data for a sample of non-financial firms from European countries. Results indicate that liquidity, leverage and productivity positively affect firm performance, while solvency and asset turnover are positive and statistically significant only in the case of return on equity. Labour productivity induces that firms tend to display larger efforts to keep financial performance in face of a crisis, considering that the crisis reveals a negative statistical impact over return on assets.

The previous literature attempted to provide explanations for the differences identified in the capital structure of companies, with a set of more or less practically applicable theories. This paper aims to capture the influence of the main factors identified in the relevant literature on the capital structure of a sample of listed companies on the main market of the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB) and, in particular, to validate or invalidate some of the theories that attempted to explain the differences in the capital structure in the literature. The results show that the capital structure of the Romanian listed companies is positively correlated with the existence of growth opportunities and negatively with the profitability, liquidity, asset tangibility and volatility coefficient.

Abstract-When making an investment decision it is veryimportant to analyze the profitability and the portfolio risk. The evolution of the stock prices included in the portfolio can influence the overall portfolio profitability. A major risk of a single share can bring a surplus of risk to the overall portfolio.It is also important to analyze the market as one stock can influence the entire market. With this in view, this paper aims at analyzing the impact that the risk of a single stock has on the portfolio or the modification determined by the price of a stock on the entire portfolio return.Index Terms-Investment decision, portfolio rentability, portfolio risk, stock market model.