Dilution of share values a possibility with options
Stock options grew enormously in the 1990s as a financial tool to align the interests of corporate executives and managers with shareholders. But now, some experts say companies went overboard with granting options, creating a financial boon for corporate executives, but a potential threat to investors through stock-option dilution, or "overhang."
( By Bob Fernandez, Inquirer Staff Writer, 08/27/2002 09:12 AM PDT)

How to value stock options
After years of heated bickering over whether to expense stock options, the debate within corporate America is shifting to an even thornier question: how to value them.
( BY DEEPA BABINGTON, Reuters, 08/19/2002 07:58 AM PDT)

Stock options are here to stay, experts predict
Quite a few tech professionals hold a certain fondness for stock options, which made many of them wealthy in recent years. Stock options will continue to have a place in employee compensation packages, even as depressed stock prices put many options underwater, compensation and placement experts say. The only wild card is a potential change in the accounting treatment of options.
( BY VICTOR GODINEZ, The Dallas Morning News, 08/13/2002 08:43 AM PDT)

Stock options don't boost firms' performance
The downside to stock options has become spectacularly evident in the last year or so. They can give executives an incentive to inflate their company's earnings or make irresponsibly optimistic forecasts to keep their companies' stock prices high and their paychecks lavish.
( By David Leonhardt, New York Times, 08/12/2002 08:54 AM PDT)

Just say 'no' to options
A few weeks ago, I outlined what I thought were the three major factors contributing to the soft underbelly of the stock market: stock options, excessive executive compensation and accounting malfeasance.
( By Steve Butler, Columnist, 07/30/2002 10:38 AM PDT)

Tech industry fights running battle against options changes
Coca-Cola's announcement two weeks ago that it would change the way it accounts for employee stock options dropped like a bomb on the high-tech industry. The news came just as the Senate was finishing a bill to clean up corporate accounting, and the timing couldn't have been worse for Silicon Valley lobbyists. They had worked hard to keep stock option reform out of the bill and Coke's decision drew new attention to the issue. So the high-tech lobby cranked into overdrive.
( By Heather Fleming Phillips, Mercury News Washington Bureau, 07/24/2002 11:46 AM PDT)

One firm's options cure: make executives buy them
One firm's options cure: Personally, I drink Pepsi. But Coke grabbed the headlines last week.
( By MARK DAVIS, Columnist, 07/21/2002 10:56 AM PDT)

Few opt to list option expense
Medtronic earned $1.04 billion, or 85 cents per diluted share last year — unless you throw in the cost of stock options doled out to management and rank-and-file employees. Then Medtronic made $926.4 million, or 76 cents per share.
( By Tim Huber, Pioneer Press, 07/18/2002 10:57 AM PDT)

Expensing options helps build trust
Once again the U.S. Senate has stopped in its tracks a proposal to expense stock options. Perhaps it's just as well. The clear and present danger was that the Senate, had it mandated such a proposal on Monday, would have strayed directly into the business of setting accounting standards. That prospect could have turned the standard-setting process, already overly complex and too vulnerable to corporate influence, into a political hornet's nest.
( DAVE BEAL, Pioneer Press Columnist, 07/17/2002 11:35 AM PDT)