2. Take Advantage of Opportunities to “Harvest” Losses. Bear markets create a lot of “losers” in which current market value is below the holding’s cost basis. (Kind of Nerdy, yes). A silver lining associated with losing investments is the opportunity to realize capital losses to lower future tax liability. Tax loss harvesting involves selling a position that is trading at a loss, creating realized losses that can be used to offset taxable capital gains or a limited amount of ordinary income.