Illiquid Securities

The SIFMA Worthless Securities Working Group no longer exists; it disbanded yesterday as part of a major structural overhaul of the SIFMA organization. Sadly, this group never solved the problems with the worthless securities.

A couple of days ago, we were invited to participate in a Reddit AMA to discuss our illiquid short positions. We were like "What's that???" After we learned more, we agreed to participate. So, TFS is showing up tomorrow night as user "TFSCapital_rgates" in this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/investing I hope they're nice to us.

Barron's wrote about our situation this last weekend in a piece titled "Getting Caught Short."  BloombergView's Matt Levine picked up on it today in "'Go to Zero' Isn't Great for Short Sellers."  

As evidenced by this article in Barrons from 2011 titled "Even Short-Sellers Burned by Chinese Shares", the problem we're trying to help fix has existed in the industry for a long time. So, we've got our work cut out!

In the course of liquidating our funds, TFS learned of an industry practice in which short positions of illiquid, and oftentimes worthless, securities are maintained on the books at various broker firms. This can cause problems to individual investors. The industry is aware of this issue, and discusses it at various forums, including the SIFMA Worthless Securities Working Group. TFS is actively engaging the industry in hopes of creating reform.