@mukiri I see you 😁

I know many might not want to hear this, but to be honest with you, in the final analysis, all stock market "investing" is essentially speculation.

The genius of the financial industry in the "West" starting a little over 140 years or so ago, was how they managed to convince the masses that;

1) putting good money (earned through crazy sweat and toil) over which one has direct control..

2) into financial 'assets' over which one has zero control (other than FA, and - God forbid - TA!)..

3) on which one "hopes" to make a gain through capital appreciation rather than asset income...

is "investing."

When people started selling valuable migunda (plots), tangible cows, oxen, houses and farm produce over which they had direct control, to buy digits and numbers on some exchange, sold by ruthless, stock-watering financial killers like Commodore Vanderbilt and Jacob Astor, over which they had zero control, that's when the world of that era started to go mad.

It's sanity has not returned to this day, in fact said madness has reached all corners of the globe, and is getting worse by the day! Read; Bitcoin.

That's why the "investing" masses have continued to get sheared ever since -- (Great depression 1929-39, Dot com bust 2001, Global financial crisis 2007/8 (effects still ongoing) and many more in between). And that's also why they will always be outperformed by dart throwing monkeys!

Add a cartel economy like Kenya into the mix, where outright corporate fraud is the norm and entire brokerages used to collapse and vanish into the wind up until relatively recently. Why would anyone in their right mind risk a huge chunk of their entire goat in such a casino?

Bottom line, for the average Joe or Jill, it is not a very wise move to expose more than 2-3% (at most) of one's hard earned assets to the casino whether in Kenya or anywhere else on God's green earth IMHO. All things (stocks..and "investors" alike) are monkeys in said casino when all is said and done.

Shalom.

@MugundaMan even putting your hard earned cash into "Migunda" involves some risk, especially here where, even after doing due diligence, you may end up being evicted from your plot. My point: I do not see sense continuing to accumulate land to the extent of buying plots in the middle of nowhere and land with greenhouses that have no roofs. You would be better off diversifying into stock than adding more of an asset you already have "enough" of. Now, when you DECIDE to diversify into stocks, that's where nasema some kind of analysis will serve you well.

@Obiero, I made my mistakes during the IPO decades. But what my mistakes taught me was that, when in an abusive marriage (Like you and KQ), it's better to cut your losses, divorce, early. Loss aversion is the cause of most heartbreaks in the NSE.

Unfortunately @Obiero is KQ serial loser

True but in this day and age when all the land registries that matter have been digitized and simple due diligence well done (search at registry, getting green card certified copy, mutations if subdivided, I.D search of the vendor, signing sale agreement, surveyor pointing out the boundaries, actual visit to the land, getting consents including spouse & Land Control Board for freehold property, paying stamp duty after getting slips, talking to neighbours on the ground, etc) do serious people ever get conned on land transactions any more?

That secure paper trail is too long my brother, it would be a tall order for one to get that done and then find out they have been swindled! Most of the stories you hear of swindling are those of people who wanted short cuts or bought a plot cash at a bar! And you are missing the bigger point which is control. At least with my mugunda in Moyale, nicely fenced, I can touch, see, breed dogs on and build my shack on. What control does the ordinary shareholder have on the management of NSE listed companies if they decide to milk the companies dry and self serve? Zero. Oxen may die but you have control over the process of caring for, feeding and vaccinating them. And you do not have to split the profits from their milk with anybody but self.

The average shareholder in the monkey casino is just a meek passenger tu, regardless of how well "diversified" he or she is. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the casino should be shut down. I'm just saying a casino is a casino and to treat in any other way is to delude oneself that one is "investing" when in reality it's just a clever form of gambling. Unless of course you own a huge chunk of shares of a particular company and can assume an activist role, appointing a representative(s) to the board and all.