Novavax Inc (NVAX)

[LongRun8]

Employee stock options

NVAX granted some new employee stock options yesterday (See the Form 4s here). I am wondering about the timing of them being granted just prior to the quarterly financial conference call, which is in two days.

My question is this:
Are insiders allowed to grant stock options with material data in hand that has not yet been released to the public.

If they are not allowed to grant options without having first made material data public, then I doubt that anything material will be released on Monday's conference call (i.e. interim RSV Phase II results in pregnant women).

On the other hand, if they are required to make material data public prior to granting employee stock options, then I would think that their timing of the options might be a bullish sign, in that they think the stock price will be heading upwards soon, potentially as soon as after the conference call.

I also wonder if these stock options had anything to do with those big purchases made EOD and A/H on Tuesday, March 4 (#msg-98249875).