Conman and his investors first applied this theory to the stock trends of a young, struggling company (see chart).  Although Conman and his investors lost rather heavily and Conman was convicted of stock fraud, it was generally held that the technique was valid.  Fudge (1965) re-evaluated Conman's model and found that the fundamental error that Conman had made was selecting a trendline of 68% Br instead of optimizing Br as nearly 100% (Bs).  This would not have altered the outcome but it would have been a more precise formulation of the model.