Marilyn Renninger
Stock options aren't just for the folks on mahogany row any more. But turning stock options into the real green stuff takes some know-how. You need to know certain features of your grant to decide when to exercise your options and sell the stock.
William Baldwin
Rather than providing you with a guarantee, today's benefit plans offer only an
opportunity to attain financial security. The decisions you must make will turn some of you into financial winners.
Professor Steven Huddart
It is tempting to exercise and sell your stock options when your company's stock price hits new highs or becomes worryingly volatile. However, this decision may not be in your best long-term financial interest. This article exames the psychological factors that can, along with economic motives, influence your stock option choices.
Joanna Glasner and Bruce Brumberg
Don't be discouraged by stock market volatility and underwater stock options. As the experts note, stock grants are tools for building wealth in the long term.
Loren Rodgers
You feel let down by your stock options. Your company's stock price has dropped, leaving you with underwater options, and the cash flow from expected option riches has evaporated.
Kelley Holland
The New York Times
For many employees, stock-based compensation represents the biggest realistic chance of an increase in personal wealth, given small rises in average salary.
Katie Hafner
The New York Times
A happy tale about the difference that stock options can make in the lives of ordinary workers, especially at pre-IPO companies which become successful and then go public.
Jessica Guynn
San Francisco Chronicle
Stock options remain a powerful lure for attracting employees to private companies, although attitudes and expectations have changed. Stock options let you participate in the value you're creating at your company, and their potential ranges from substantial wealth to nothing at all.
Gerry Ledford, Matthew Lucy, and Peter LeBlanc
Perspectives (Sibson Consulting)
Stock options have a positive impact on company culture, with modest effects on employee motivation and performance.
Return to top of this page
By granting you a stock option, your company gives you the right to buy its stock at a fixed price during a specified period. Restricted stock is usually granted without any cost to you. With an employee stock purchase plan (ESPP), you do have a cost when you buy shares. For companies, stock options, restricted stock, and ESPPs are not free...
A company may make these grants for a variety of reasons. Surveys show that...
The National Center for Employee Ownership cites part of a study on whether options really motivate, attract, and retain workers...
Stock options give you the opportunity to buy shares of stock at a price that is fixed on the grant date, regardless of what the market price is when you exercise...
Stock options allow employees and other service-providers to share in the growth of a company's value without risking their money until they exercise the options to buy the shares...
If your employer is a publicly traded company (e.g., on a stock exchange such as NYSE or NASDAQ), your employer is required to file...
If your employer is a for-profit corporation, it probably can offer stock options or other types of equity compensation to its employees. There may, however, be many reasons why your employer is not offering stock grants...
You could mistakenly let the options expire without exercising them. You do not have your vested options for life...
A clawback is triggered when you leave to work for a direct competitor or engage in...
You become an owner in your company, with all the financial upside and risks that any investment can bring. By participating in the plan...
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...
Return to top of page
Test your knowledge with our Basics Of Stock Grants quiz.
Listen to our new Podcast on Stock Option Basics.
