The bear market of 2022 will likely go down in history as one of the more brutal years for investors. The Nasdaq Composite index has dropped by around 30% since January, and a few growth names fell by more than 90% from their peak.

This decline devastated some investors who had hoped to retire soon, and many have reevaluated their appetites for risk. But for retirement investors who still want market exposure, stocks such as Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO), and International Business Machines (NYSE: IBM) should lower the risks while increasing the potential for gains.

Justin Pope (Microsoft): From its founding in 1975, Microsoft has grown into one of the world's largest companies, a technology conglomerate with a $1.8 trillion market cap today. Technology companies can have difficulty staying relevant in an industry where there's always new competition emerging. However, Microsoft has successfully stayed with the times. Microsoft's Windows operating software, its legacy business, remains a powerhouse with a 75% market share of the global desktop computer market. But its cloud platform Azure, one of its most important segments today, didn't launch until 2010.

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Source Fool.com