Yesterday the hospitality sector did not live up to its name for shareholders. Stock prices decreased as did most of the indices. Shedding off 25 cents may seem little to a small shareholder, but to an investor with over 1 million shares - yes, they exist - it translates to a loss of KES 250,000.

Not so small is it?

Today we shall focus on media houses and their movement. The only ones listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange are Nation Media Group and Standard Group. With a printing house and a TV station under each of their arms, one would expect them to rake in profits in the billions.

• Nation Media Group – The group’s footprints can be found all over East Africa i.e. Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda. They publish a variety of newspapers that will see you spend KES 50 a piece to get the latest news on Kenya’s economy, making it an annual expense of KES 18,250. What if you had spent that money purchasing their shares instead? Income is guaranteed by the group and stock price variation could work in your favor. A quick look at their 52-week range shows that their shares currently stand at KES 227, having started at KES 130. Let’s see if anyone else noticed the change and wants a stake in the media house.
• Standard Group – The group has The Standard and KTN (Kenya Television Network) whose existence can only be rivaled by that of KBC (Kenya Broadcasting Corporation). The group was recently awarded the best Kenyan media website of the year 2012 by the Computer Society of Kenya. More reason for shareholders’ confidence on the group’s performance to increase. And what of their share price range for the year? They have had a year low of KES 20 and a high of KES 31. They are however currently trading at KES 22.50. Will this trend persist into 2013? Let us keep an eye on the price movement for today.