Quote Originally Posted by D-Type View Post
How do options work?

I thought it was if the price goes up you have the option to buy shares at the old price. But if the share price goes down, you have the option of not buying.
Right. We had that when our company was taken over. The purchase value of the shared was less than the options, therefore if we'd cashed them in at that point, we'd have lost money.

Cashing them in is simply selling the right to someone else. Or is it buying at the old price and immediately selling at the new higher price? This year your option is worthless so you can't sell it and you don't want to buy your shares for more than the current market price. The only way you can owe the company money is if you foolishly opt to buy the shares anyway even though the price you pay is higher than market price.

But I could be wrong.
You have to buy them at the option price then you can either keep them, or immediately sell them. I have a few stock options in web.com but I have to wait 2 years before I can use those options, and if I leave the company I lose the options right.

Even so, I would expect it would be 'night out' sort of money rather than it forming any significant part of my salary.