One investor’s loss can be another’s big gain, if you do your homework and are savvy.

Case in point: MarketWatch recently explained that investors who sell this year’s laggards may be dumping stocks that could rebound next year.

“A winning strategy is to buy the losers as they get hit by this “tax-loss selling.” Then hold them either for a pop in January when the pressure eases or, better yet, as medium-term positions,” MarketWatch explained. “Of course, the trick is to buy shares of companies with good prospects. A lot of stocks are down because they deserve to be, and they aren’t coming back.”

Here are 3 of the many examples offered by MarketWatch:

1. CBS (VIAC): CBS stock is down 13% from where it started the year. Chris Marangi, co-chief investment officer at GAMCO Investors, doesn’t think investors give the company enough credit for the benefits that will flow from the recent CBS-Viacom merger, such as significant cost savings and other synergies.
2. L Brands (LB): The company known for flaunting picture-perfect teen bodies in its Victoria’s Secret ads now seems woefully out of touch, MarketWatch said. “A lot of people are turned off by the whole sexy approach to their marketing,” says Bob Bacarella, founder and chairman of Monetta Financial Services. “They have not adapted to changing consumer trends.” Victoria’s Secret is now under new management, which is rethinking its image. “The pieces are worth more than the whole,” says Bacarella.
3. United Natural Foods (UNFI): Trading at $7.47 a share, this food distributor is near its 52-week low. “Virtually anyone who bought it this year is down, which makes this a classic tax-loss-selling candidate. The company is down in part on concerns it might lose its contract to supply Whole Foods several years from now when the current agreement expires,” MarketWatch said. Charles Lemonides, a value investor at the money-management firm ValueWorks, questions this thesis. Lemonides thinks the worst is over and the pair will show signs of improvement soon. He says United Natural Foods looks cheap, trading at just under six times earnings.

Meanwhile, U.S. stocks face a greater-than-usual risk of a sell-off next year, with investors overconfident in an economic resurgence, according to Vanguard Group Inc.’s investment-strategy chief.

“Financial markets run the risk of getting ahead of themselves,” Joseph Davis, who also serves as Vanguard’s chief economist, told Bloomberg. He sees 50% odds on a correction in 2020, against what he terms a more typical figure of about 30%.

A correction is often defined as a 10% drop, and the S&P 500 Index hasn’t seen one since December 2018, when it came a hair’s breadth from entering a bear market -- that is, recording a decline of 20% from the peak.