stock options

Cultural  

1. The right to purchase a company's shares at a future date at an agreed price. Companies often give stock options to their executives as an incentive to improve the company's performance and boost its share price. If the share price has risen above the agreed price of the option by the time the option is exercised, the executive stands to make a considerable profit.

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Example Sentences

Cheap stock options provide less incentives for the company to take risks.

From Salon • Jun. 13, 2026

This refers to stock options granted to executives before an IPO at a share price far below the eventual IPO price.

From Salon • Jun. 13, 2026

Many SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI employees have a mix of equity compensation, including nonqualified stock options, incentive stock options, restricted stock units and employee stock-purchase plan shares.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 9, 2026

The AI boom has driven Nvidia's stock price up more than 1,170 percent over the past five years, making many employees holding stock options millionaires practically overnight.

From Barron's • Jun. 2, 2026

From barter to the trading of commodities futures and stock options, from money to the cashless society, markets constitute frameworks for higher transaction efficiency, often equated with profit.

From The Civilization of Illiteracy by Nadin, Mihai