The stock market has been painful in 2022. The S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) market index has fallen 18% year-to-date and many high-quality companies have seen even steeper dips. That doesn't mean you should abandon stocks right now, though. In fact, this looks like a great time to buy fantastic stocks at a massive discount.

Consider the case of Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) in 2011, for example. The DVD-by-mail pioneer was riding high that summer, reaching an all-time high (at the time) of $43.54% on July 13 after a 52-week climb of 147%. But the company stood on the verge of a dramatic sell-off. Netflix expanded its digital video-streaming service to a few countries in Latin America that month, followed by splitting DVD mailers and streaming services into two separate consumer services. With the benefit of hindsight, that separation was a wise and game-changing move. Back then, investors focused on the higher subscription prices that followed. Netflix shares plunged as much as 79.5% lower during these four months, now remembered as the Qwikster debacle.

What if you saw through the short-sighted panic and bought Netflix shares in the fall of 2011, when everyone else was selling the stock? For example, I doubled down on my Netflix investment on October 30, about a month before the yearly lows on November 30. So I missed the perfect buying date and some lucky investors have enjoyed a 33% stronger return from this event. I'm not complaining, though. Every $5,000 investment from Nov. 30, 2011, is now worth $122,500, trouncing the S&P 500's returns over the same period:

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Source Fool.com