No. The USD has also depreciated in real terms. Petrol was $1/gallon in the early 90s now it's $4+ per gallon. The BLS has details & stats on a lot of these prices. So if a $1 in 1990 is worth $2 today then multiply KES 4.3 by 2.

@Young - Long time no see. All well? Look at Centum's Pearl Marina project in Uganda. You may like it.

BOC has been around for years/decades. It was known as East African Oxygen but then changed to BOC (Kenya) after Linde acquired the parent British Oxygen Company. Like you, I expect great things out of this firm. It also owns 36% of Carbacid.

ARM was not a blue chip until recently. At some point it flirted with 'death' when the market for cement was down. Hats off to the CEO Pradeep Paunrana who brought it back to life!

KPLC - My friend. On this one, I am afraid I disagree. With the current populist climate, it may be headed for a collapse in profitability.

I have bought all my shares during IPOs.
I have never sold any.
Over the years, there have been bonus issues, rights issues.
I don't follow the NSE closely, and only check at each month end
to update my spreadsheet.
Equities form a very, very small part of my investments.
I am mostly into real estate and bonds
Below is the performance of my best holdings, as at the end of May.

STOCK// AVERAGE COST// CURRENT PRICE// % GAIN

BBK // 2.50 // 17.95 // 618
NIC // 8.00 // 56.50 // 606
SCB // 30.65 // 300.00 // 879
KCB // 7.85 // 41.50 // 429
SCAN // 8.70 // 67.50// 676

TOTAL // 1,516,697.00 // 6,404,528.00 // 322

I also have Total, Uchumi, HFCK, NBK, KQ, Kengen & Scom.

Over the years, the dividends have paid for the initial investment

@young - I stay out of direct real estate investments. Too much work. I prefer firms that have real estate & sell at a discount e.g. Centum, KenolKobil, etc [Though they may not be 100% into Real Estate]

Co-operative bank has more than tripled in value since its listing in 2008.Remember in 2009 when there was a time it was at ksh.6bob.
By early next year the counter will be trading at ksh.25.
Watch this space.

My best buy remains my initial investment
of 92,000 ksh which I bougt 2,000 units
of KCB precisely at 45 bob per share in July 2004.

The 10.1 split in 2006 gave me 20,000 units.
I sold them at 45.25 bob this August 2013 which is
a 1,000% gain ,the net amount was 902,000 bob.

I used the proceeds to buy 122,600 units of Safaricom
same August 2013 at 7.15 bob per share.

In Todays closing price of safaricom at 10.80
my initial investment of 92,000 bob in your NSE
in 2004 is worth 1,324,000 bob in November 2013.
I thank God for that.

Maybe the thread should have read biggest gainer/loser to bring afore the two sides of investing in stocks

There's already a thread on that. Kq takes the lead.

And mumias

So are we assuming Guka never bought land.. or does not do any trading of anything?? Guess life starts and ends with shares bought in 1990.