The two companies have announced plans to swap stock and combine operations by the end of the year in a deal valued at about $2 billion.

Lockheed Martin said it would offer its own shareholders the chance to swap stock for a total of 37.35 million shares in the materials company.

Other plans to swap stock for shares in offshore trusts also seem to have fizzled.

Neither, however, is expected to take quick action actually to swap stock because of accounting penalties involved and the long regulatory process facing Paramount.

The Grande Ceinture is currently used to swap stock and as a diversion line.

That is because Northwest merely postponed its obligations, rather than swapping new stock to relieve debt, as Continental and T.W.A. did in emerging from bankruptcy.

Warner could buy the company instead of swapping stock with it.

Stock is also the currency of choice for acquirers because of provisions in the accounting code that allow companies that swap stock to report higher earnings after the deal.

Volvo and Renault announced in February they would swap and buy stock in each other to share research and development costs.

Cadence said it would swap stock worth $14 a share, a total of $253 million, for Quickturn.