Vest Fleece

Something nice to have if it’s a little chilly out. Also, they just look good.

On Wall Street, a "vest fleece" relates to stock options. It's a slang term referring to a company moving up the vesting of stock options in order to take advantage of a good market situation.

Shares of a company go up. All the employees want to take advantage of the higher stock prices, so the company agrees to accelerate its ability to vest those options. That situation leads to a bunch of stock hitting the market; the employees receive their options and cash them in at higher prices on the public market.

The "fleecing" part refers to the current shareholders. The additional shares brought online due to the option-vesting process dilutes the stakes held by current shareholders. Their shares get less valuable, because a larger supply is now available thanks to the shares created by the stock options getting vested.