I was a young guy at UoN. I did an IT job and got paid some 50k. I did not have urgent use for the cash, so I decided to buy some shares. I went to the famous brokerage, very near campo, and sought to buy some shares. Those days, not many Kenyans bought shares, so the place was empty and they had personalised service! I knew little about shares, therefore the 2 shares I wanted to buy were UcHUMI and KQ, because they were popular. KQ was 7 bob and UCHUMI was 12 bob per share. I still have the Nation newspaper clipping for the previous day's trades. Sentimental value.
I told the broker who was doing my trade to buy me some KQ. BUT, he told me UCHUMI was doing quite well and persuaded me to buy! I bought 3000 UCHUMI shares, which are pretty worthless to me right now. I still remember the guy at that brokerage; his name starts with an A. I should have stuck to the KQ I had chosen to buy. It rose to 120 in the next few months. FIRST lesson of investment learnt the hard way.
During the KENGEN IPO, I was pretty wisened up by then. I got alloted 6431 maximum shares THRICE (I used my 2 brothers as proxies). I sold at 39 bob on first day of trading. I still insist, there shall never be an IPO like KENGEN. Simply fantastic cash!
Set out to correct the world's wrongs and you will most certainly wind up adding to them.