If you own securities, including stocks, and they become totally worthless, you have a capital loss but not a deduction for bad debt. Worthless securities also include securities that you abandon. To abandon a security, you must permanently surrender and relinquish all rights in the security and receive no consideration in exchange for it.

• Treat worthless securities as though they were capital assets sold or exchanged on the last day of the tax year.
• You must determine the holding period to determine if the capital loss is short term (one year or less) or long term (more than one year). 
• Report losses due to worthless securities on Schedule D of Form 1040 and fill out Part I or Part II of Form 8949.