Equity grant

Shares or units an insider receives as compensation, reported under transaction code A rather than as a purchase.

Updated 2026-07-26

A grant is an award from the company: restricted stock, performance units, options. The insider's holdings go up, the insider pays nothing, and the timing is set by a compensation calendar rather than by any view of the company.

This is why grants and purchases must never be added together. A month in which a company makes its annual awards will show a large increase in insider holdings that carries none of the meaning a purchase would.

Grants often vest later and in stages. The grant date and the vesting date are different events, and only some of them generate their own filings.

Related terms

5 entries
Form 4
The filing in which a company insider reports a change in their holdings, normally within two business days.
Insider
A person or entity whose relationship with a company obliges them to report their transactions in its securities.
Open market purchase
An insider buying shares on the market with their own money, reported under transaction code P.
Option exercise
Converting a derivative holding into shares, reported under transaction code M and often paired with a same-day sale.
Transaction code
The one or two letter code on each row of a Form 4 that says what kind of change occurred.

Where this appears in the data

Written for reading the records published here. This is not a legal, tax or accounting definition, and where a jurisdiction defines the term precisely, that definition governs.
Equity grant — definition — Tapewire