Pay Me in Stock Options: Manage the Options You Have, Win the Options You Want

A COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE TO TAKING FULL ADVANTAGE OF STOCK OPTIONS.

Pay Me in Stock Options is an employee’s guidebook to managing and understanding how stock options plans work in order to use them to their best advantage, offering specific strategies on vesting schedules and tax implications, along with real-life examples from plans that readers can learn from.

• Nearly two-thirds said that options would be a “some-what important” consideration in looking for a new job.
• Nearly two-thirds said that options would play an important role in planning for their financial security.
• Almost a third—28 percent—said that if they were looking for a new job today, they would consider taking a lower base salary in exchange for stock options.

“Increasingly, employees are looking at stock options as a way to secure their financial future,” Oppenheimer concluded.

But a curious thing happened on the way to this revolution. Knowledge failed to catch up with reality. Despite the fact that stock options are one of the most complex and powerful tools ever devised for making money, and despite the fact that more people than ever before are getting them, it turns out that employees, whether they own options or not, are spending little or no time learning about them. Nearly 40 percent of options holders told Oppenheimer that they know little or nothing about options, while 37 percent admitted that they know more about Einstein’s theory of relativity than they do about taxation of their stock options!

Even more ominously, 11 percent conceded that they have allowed in-the-money options to expire worthless. If someone handed you a suitcase of money, would you throw it in the nearest garbage can? Of course not. Yet that’s precisely what these people were at risk of doing, because they didn’t take the trouble to understand and manage their stock options.

That’s where Pay Me in Stock Options comes in. As the first book about stock options written for the layperson, it will teach you how to manage your options if you already have them, and win options if you want them. In 10 easy lessons, this book explains everything you need to know to maximize the value of your stock options, from the basics through smart strategies for exercising options, selling stock, and minimizing taxes to investing the proceeds like an expert.

Contents:

• We Have Seen the Future, and It Is Stock Options
• The New Corporate Hero
• Lesson 1: Stock Option Basics
• Lesson 2: Different Types of Options, How They Work, and How They Are Taxed
• Lesson 3: Vesting, Expiration, and Valuation
• Lesson 4: Exercising Your Options
• Lesson 5: What Should You Do with the Proceeds?
• Lesson 6: A Short Course in Asset Allocation
• Lesson 7: The Risks of Options
• Lesson 8: Options Overseas
• Lesson 9: Other Types of Stock-Based Compensation
• Lesson 10: Avoiding Common Mistakes
• How to Negotiate for Stock Options
• Frequently Asked Questions

Pay Me in Stock Options: Manage the Options You Have, Win the Options You Want By Carol E. Curtis pdf