Samuel D. Swisher
When should you exercise nonqualified stock options? You need a decision-making process that removes guesswork and emotions. Otherwise, you're likely to exercise too soon or too late.
Richard Friedman
Your company just gave you a stock option grant, or your existing options are underwater. You wonder: "What are my stock options worth? Are they worth anything at all?" Learn about different valuation methods, including Black-Scholes.
Chris Murphy
NEW! A down market provides ideal circumstances for negotiating a larger stake of equity compensation as part of your pay package. With companies looking to conserve cash and find effective ways to recruit, retain, and motivate executives and key employees, your interest in this type of compensation may be well received. This article explores the possibilities you may want to consider if this opportunity arises.
Nancy Nichols and Luis Betancourt
Journal of Accountancy
Accounting for employee stock options requires knowing more than valuation methods and expensing rules. FAS 123(R) has implications for tax accounting as well.
Charles Baril, Luis Betancourt, and John Briggs
Journal of Accountancy
Compare the major models used to value options at grant: Black-Scholes-Merton and lattice. If you're good at crunching numbers, you can build your own spreadsheet.
Joseph D'Urso
The CPA Journal
Looking to understand whether a lattice model will result in different employee stock option valuation? The author's Excel spreadsheet, which you can download, produces a standard binomial model.
Craig Schneider
CFO Magazine
The Black-Scholes option-valuation model has a competitor in the binomial model for employee stock options. Both formulae are complex, are not for the math-shy, and do not reflect what you can sell your options for today.
Wharton School
Research shows that employees tend to misunderstand the basic economics of stock options. In many instances, a gap separates employees' valuation and what their options are theoretically worth.
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Changes in executive and equity pay practices during the current downturn may eventually be far more wrenching than those caused by the 2000–2002 market drop. The focus in stock compensation has shifted from adjusting grant practices for mandatory expensing to questions about...
Mathematical models for valuing stock options fit into two families: the Black-Scholes model and the "lattice" models. What these try to value in stock options is the "option" that gives you the ability to purchase shares at a fixed priced for a set term. Although the models were developed for tradable listed options, with some modifications they can apply to employee stock options too...
The value of an option consists of two elements: time premium and intrinsic value. Intrinsic value is the difference...
Expensing became mandatory for calendar-year companies at the beginning of 2006. This does not change the tax treatment of your stock option grant. However, because companies take an earnings charge for the "fair value" of stock option grants on their income statements, companies may change their grant practices by reducing the number of stock options, moving to grant more...
Let's begin with the "accounting reasons." Since January 1, 2006, every US company has had to recognize unvested stock options as...
A summary of data in surveys from 10 major consulting and research firms shows that...
Mandatory expensing started on January 1, 2006. Companies must recognize an earnings charge unless their ESPPs fit into the discount safe harbor rule. This has led companies to re-examine features of their ESPPs, including...
Companies are taking various approaches to modifying their ESPPs. Other than making no changes at all, they are considering (or are actually) reducing the discount, shortening the...
Stock options often cannot be exercised until they are vested, and then they are profitable only after...
The future value and its certainty depend on whether you are at a public or a private company. You determine the practical cash value of options in public companies by noting the...
If you are vested in your stock options and they are currently exercisable...
With variable grant guidelines, your company determines grant size according to a target dollar value rather than...
The calculation is simple. You multiply the number of shares you received by the...
Yes. Although the calculation is simpler than that for stock options, it has complexities of its own. For restricted stock and RSUs, the expense is based on the fair value at...
Different methods can be used. The valuation of options and stock issued by private companies is more art than science. At least in the context of valuations for estate and gift tax purposes, the IRS has admitted...
If legal title to stock options is not being transferred under the divorce decree, the options are valued so that other property (e.g., cash or a house) can be awarded to the nonemployee-spouse...
When the net intrinsic value of the stock is zero, the attorney for the nonemployee-spouse has two ways to obtain...
Unvested options are not taxed or included in your estate. The value of any vested but unexercised stock options would be...
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