Worthless Securities

Worthless securities have a market value of zero. Worthless securities can include stocks or bonds that are either publicly traded or privately held. These securities, along with any securities that an investor has abandoned, result in a capital loss for the owner and can be claimed as such when filing taxes.

To declare a capital loss from worthless securities, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) suggests investors treat them as if they were capital assets sold or exchanged on the final day of the tax year. As with other securities, investors must first figure out the holding period to determine if the capital loss is short-term (one year or less) or long-term (greater than one year).

In the case of a short-term loss, investors must report this on Part I of Schedule D. Investors can net short-term gains and losses against one other to determine a net short-term gain or loss.

For long-term losses, investors report these in Part II of Schedule D. Again, investors can net long-term gains and losses against each other to determine the net long-term gain or loss. After the investor completes these calculations separately in Parts I and II of Schedule D, she can net them together for an overall result.

For more information about tax selling (a strategy in which an investor sells an asset with a capital loss in order to lower or eliminate the capital gain that she or he realizes via other investments), see Investopedia’s comprehensive definition.

Public company market value, also known as the market capitalization, is the number of outstanding shares of a publicly-traded company, multiplied by the current share price. For a private company, valuation methods include comparable company analysis and/or an estimation of discounted cash flows. Worthless securities will have a market value of zero as noted above.

Because of their small market value, penny stocks typically trade outside of the major market exchanges (through the OTC Bulletin Board (OTCBB) and pink sheets) at a relatively low price ($5 or less). These stocks are considered highly speculative and high risk, due to their lack of liquidity, large bid-ask spreads, small capitalizations, and limited followings and disclosures.

Investopedia listed the ten top-performing penny stocks in July 2018. These were:

1. Enphase Energy Inc. (ENPH)
2. Bellerophon Therapeutics, Inc. (BLPH)
3. Genesis Healthcare, Inc. (GEN)
4. Senseonics Holdings, Inc. (SENS)
5. Denbury Resources Inc. (DNR)
6. Ascena Retail Group, Inc. (ASNA)
7. Neptune Technologies & Bioresources Inc. (NEPT)
8. Cerecor Inc. (CERC)