My wife was offered stock in the company she works for but is unable to sell the stock after a recent increase. Any ideas why?

Working from experience to answer this, the first place to start for both of you is to review the documents under which the stock was offered. There may be a restrictive clause that tells how long she has to hold the shares.

The stock may not be registered. All stock offered for sale on public exchanges must be registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Your wife may have unregistered shares of a publicly traded company which means she has to go through the Rule 144 or Rule 145 procedures to register her stock before offering it for sale.

Depending on what your wife does for the company, she may be deemed to be an "insider", meaning she has knowledge of facts that could materially impact the price of the stock. Those covered can range from the company presidents secretary, anyone in the finance department to a supervisor on the loading dock who knows how outgoing shipments compare to last years shipments. Some pf these folks have a very small period of time four times a year when they can sell shares.

If a review of the document under which the shares were offered doesn't answer your questionm your wife should contact either Human Resources or the Treasurers office to find out what the restriction is.