Annual report pursuant to Section 13 and 15(d)

Fair Value Measurements

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Fair Value Measurements
 12 Months Ended
Dec. 31, 2011
Fair Value Measurements [Abstract]  
Fair Value Measurements

NOTE 12 – FAIR VALUE MEASUREMENTS

Fair value is defined as the price that would be received to sell an asset or paid to transfer a liability in an orderly transaction between market participants at the measurement date. Assets and liabilities measured at fair value are classified using the following hierarchy, which is based upon the transparency of inputs to the valuation as of the measurement date:

Level 1 – Observable inputs that reflect unadjusted quoted prices for identical assets or liabilities in active markets that the Company has the ability to access at the measurement date.

Level 2 – Observable inputs such as quoted prices for similar instruments and quoted prices in markets that are not active, and inputs that are directly observable or can be corroborated by observable market data. The types of assets and liabilities included in Level 2 are typically either comparable to actively traded securities or contracts, such as treasury securities with pricing interpolated from recent trades of similar securities, or priced with models using highly observable inputs, such as commodity options priced using observable forward prices and volatilities.

Level 3 – Significant inputs to pricing that have little or no observability as of the reporting date. The types of assets and liabilities included in Level 3 are those with inputs requiring significant management judgment or estimation, such as the complex and subjective models and forecasts used to determine the fair value of financial instruments.

The Company's assets and liabilities that are measured at fair value on a recurring basis as of December 31, 2011 and December 31, 2010, respectively, include money market funds within cash equivalents of $830,000 and $9,624,000 classified as level one within the hierarchy and certificate of deposits within investments of $23,519,000 and $26,287,000 classified as level two. The Company does not have any assets or liabilities classified as level three within the hierarchy, other than the pension assets already discussed in Note 6.