5 of this year's biggest stock losers that are good bets in 2027

By Mark Hulbert

One year's worst performers often beat the market the next

Nike's stock is down more than 30% year to date. Could they rebound in 2027?

Nike is this year's worst-performing stock in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which is why you should consider buying it.

That's because one year's worst performer often proceeds to perform well in the subsequent year. Contrarians who do more than talk the talk about betting against the crowd should consider stocks such as Nike (NKE), which has lost 34.8% so far this - versus a 12.4% total return for the Dow DJIA (data through Nov. 4).

Consider a hypothetical portfolio that in each calendar year over the past decade invested in the Dow's worst performer of the prior year. Through Nov. 4, this portfolio produced an 11.1% annualized total return, versus 6.9% for the State Street SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF Trust DIA.

Last year's worst Dow performer was UnitedHealth Group (UNH), which in 2025 lost 33.1%, according to LSEG data. So far this year, in contrast, the stock has gained 26.4% - more than doubling the gain of the Dow itself.

Why contrarians should wait

Contrarians reviewing this history may be tempted to invest immediately in Nike and other year-to-date Dow losers. But history suggests that they hold off until January before doing so, because of two year-end practices on Wall Street.

The first is year-end window dressing, in which institutions sell their losers in order to avoid the embarrassment of having their year-end reports to reveal that they owned those losers. The second is tax-loss selling, in which investors sell stocks they hold at a loss in order to offset any capital gains on which they otherwise would have to pay tax the subsequent April 15. Because of these two practices, stocks that at the end of October are already sitting on a year-to-date loss are likely to lose even more in November and December.

Over the final two months of last year, for example. UnitedHealth Group's stock lost 0.7%, in contrast to a 1.4% total return gain for the DJIA ETF.

Not every year's loser is a good bet in the subsequent year, needless to say, which is why contrarians shouldn't automatically buy the prior year's worst. And, needless to say, you should never bet your portfolio on just one stock. Nevertheless, to give you an idea of stocks that contrarians could consider, I constructed the table below of Dow stocks that have lost money so far this year and which are also recommended for purchase by one or more of the investment newsletters monitored by my performance-auditing firm.

One strategy for investing in these or similar stocks is to place buy orders well below the market. If you're lucky, one or more of your buy orders might get filled and enable you to buy the stocks at even lower prices. There was one point in the last two months of last year, for example, when UnitedHealth Group's stock was 10.8% lower than where it had stood at the end of October. If at the end of last October you had put in a buy order on the stock 10% below its then-current price, you'd now be sitting on close to a 35% gain.

 
Ticker  Stock  YTD loss (thru 11/4)   # newsletters recommending 
NKE                                               2 
CRM                                               1 
IBM                                               1 
AXP                                               1 
MCD                                               1 

Mark Hulbert is a regular contributor to MarketWatch. His Hulbert Ratings tracks investment newsletters that pay a flat fee to be audited. He can be reached at mark@hulbertratings.com

-Mark Hulbert

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11-05-26 1629ET