In a liquidation, he thinks, the shares would fetch at least $50.

By summer, as profits turned to losses, the shares were fetching less than $15.

Its closing price on Friday of $31.14 was 31 percent less than the $45 the shares fetched just before the announcement.

Remember when its shares fetched more than $59 apiece back in the fall of '91?

The last price is more than double what the shares fetched only three months ago.

And while Thursday's high was a record, the price is not much above the $40 that the shares fetched in 1984.

They size up the company's prospects with investors and determine the price the shares may fetch.

The shares, he found, fetched 40 to 95 times earnings in 1972.

Its shares now fetch $2.125, down from $15 when it went public just over a decade ago.

A few months earlier, shortly after the fraud began, the shares were fetching $4 each.