Daniel Zajac, CFP®

How to Use a Stock Swap to Exercise Your Employee Stock Options

March 19, 2019 By Daniel Zajac, CFP®, AIF®, CLU® Leave a Comment

A stock swap can be a great strategy to use if you have employee stock options you’d like to exercise and hold. It allows you to use the fair market value (FMV) of company stock you already own to pay for the exercise cost of newly acquired employee stock option shares. Shares you own that can be used for a stock swap can include those you’ve purchased on the open market, shares acquired from vested restricted stock units, shares you own from an exercise and hold of previous employee stock options, and/or shares acquired from and employee …

Leverage on Your Employee Stock Options: Good or Bad (or Somewhere in Between)?

March 12, 2019 By Daniel Zajac, CFP®, AIF®, CLU® Leave a Comment

If you receive grants of employee stock options, you should understand the concept of leverage and how it can impact the value of your options. You can’t eliminate the issue of leverage altogether, as it is inherent in employee stock options. But knowing how, when, and by how much it impacts the value can arm you with the information you need to make appropriate decisions on what to do with your options. How to Define Leverage As it relates to stock options, leverage is the percentage change you see in the total value of your employee …

Why Waiting to Exercise Your Incentive Stock Options May Increase The AMT

March 5, 2019 By Daniel Zajac, CFP®, AIF®, CLU® Leave a Comment

Incentive stock options are unique in that the longer you wait to exercise, the costlier it may be to exercise and hold your shares. That’s not because exercising the ISOs cost more, as that price is fixed, but because the cost of the alternative minimum tax (AMT) may be higher. Most of us want the share price of our stock to increase over time. Getting preferential tax treatment is always nice, too. So let’s say you exercise and hold your incentive stock options for a least one year to meet the standards for a qualifying disposition, …

My real passion is helping people who are serious about making great decisions with their money pursue financial success.

Like you, my clients are busy and successful. They often work with me because they are serious about creating a plan to exercise and sell some or all of their stock options (in the short or long term).

A plan that addresses the alternative minimum tax, holding period requirements, cash flow needs, investment risk, and personal financial planning goals.

Looking to work with me? Click here

Want to learn more about how I help my clients? Click here