It’s every stock player’s dream – that is, to own any of a certain four stocks, each of which has more than doubled or tripled in price from a 52-week low to a 12-month high. Or, to buy a stock and then find that within three weeks the company gets a multibillion-dollar takeover bid at a much higher price.

If you own any of these beauties, of course, you’ve made a lot of money. But if you have recently been active in these securities, you also stand a good chance of getting a phone call or letter from the cops on the securities beat asking you to explain the basis of your trade.

The four companies are Intuitive Surgical, Advanced Neuromodulation Systems, Florida Rock Industries, and Catellus Development Corporation.

The Securities and Exchange Commission and the market regulation division of Nasdaq have just commenced confidential investigations into the trading in the four companies (both stocks and options), I’ve been authoritatively told.

Of the four probes, three are being conducted by the SEC. The fourth, of Advanced Neuromoduation, is being handled by Nasdaq. Brokerage firms involved in the transactions are being asked to provide the names of the buyers, sellers, and short-sellers (those investors who bet stock prices will fall).

The SEC and Nasdaq, as is normally their practice, declined to comment on the trading probes, but a regulatory source familiar with them confirmed the investigations.

You may never have heard of either of these two health care companies, Advanced Neuromodulation Systems or Intuitive Surgical, both makers of esoteric medical equipment, but they’ve wowed Wall Street this year with respective stock market gains of more than 100% and 200% from their 52-week lows.

The price of Intuitive Surgical has shot up to a high of $95.87 from a 52-week low of $30 and closed Friday at $92.32. Employing the science of computer-aided touch sensitivity, called haptics, the company has developed a surgical system of software, hardware, and optics to allow doctors to perform robotically aided surgery from a remote console. This system is said to faithfully reproduce the doctor’s hand in real time, with surgery performed by tiny electromechanical arms and instruments inserted in the patient’s body through small openings.

Intuitive, which sells its products through Asia, Europe, and North America, earned $23.5 million last year on sales of $138.8 million.

Advanced Neuromodulation has ballooned to a high of $61.38 from a 52-week low of $26.52 and closed Friday at $61. The company makes products for the treatment of nervous system disorders and chronic pain. Included are radio-frequency stimulation to disrupt pain signals in the nervous system and an implantable pulse generator that stimulates the spinal cord and has possible applications for angina, urinary continence, and Parkinson’s disease.

The company, which markets its products to health care specialists like anesthesiologists, neurosurgeons, and orthopedic surgeons, earned $18.2 million last year on sales of $120.7 million.

In the case of Catellus, a large real estate investment trust, the SEC is specifically looking at the trading that took place in the three weeks prior to the mid-June announcement of a $4.9 billion takeover offer from ProLogis, a leading global provider of distribution facilities and services. The deal took place in September.

The final probe, focusing on Florida Rock Industries, a Big Board provider of sand, gravel, and crushed stone to the construction industry, centers on the trading of the last four months. The company’s stock, quite volatile at times, has more than doubled, rising to a high of $67.98 from a 52-week low of $33.07. It closed Friday at $55.20.

dandordan@aol.com