Not exactly. You do not need an exchange to buy and sell stock. Two people can get together and do a deal, like what happens in after-hours trading.

The problem is that lack of an exchange makes it harder...you can't just point and click with scottrade or whatever. This means that mesa stock will be worth less because the average investor or institution will not want to bother with that hassle. Only a few specialist traders might be interested.

But it sure won't help them obtain DIP financing for the BK filing.