Money arrived. It went to two doors.
Friday to Friday; 31 July to 7 August; the All-Share eased 0.17% to 4,183.38 and the domestic Tanzania Share Index eased 0.49% to 9,169.71 (DSE, 7 Aug verified close). Underneath, the sectors disagreed with each other: Industrial & Allied fell 1.96%, Banks fell 0.28%, and Commercial Services rose 1.86%. Six of nineteen comparable counters rose.
The turnover is the number worth keeping. Five verified sessions traded TSh 7.10bn, 5.06bn, 4.53bn, 3.83bn and 5.26bnUnavailableTSh 25.77bn in total. NMB supplied TSh 11.34bn of it and CRDB TSh 10.68bn: together 85.4% of every shilling that changed hands all week. A market can be flat and still be saying something loud, and what this one is saying is that ordinary value has not yet spread past two bank counters.
The book's own marks, 3 August to 7 August, moved very little. Vodacom went TSh 1,000 → TSh 1,020 (+2.00%), with 169,524 shares traded on 7 August; funded, not a mark-up. NMB went TSh 17,570 → TSh 17,580 (+0.06%), printing TSh 17,600 on 5 and 6 August. Against them, CRDB eased to TSh 2,590 (−0.38%), Twiga (TPCC) recovered to TSh 5,850 (+0.52%), and TCC was unchanged at TSh 12,300. Every mark reconciles to the verified DSE close.
The book ended at TSh 556.4m, +8.40% money-weighted since inception on 6 June, against TSh 514.0m of contributed capital; TSh 42.4m of model market P&L. The week added roughly TSh 1.8m, and about 92% of it was Vodacom. Last week one holding did 85% of a very good week; this week one holding did 92% of a very small one. The proportion did not change when the size did. That is what concentration looks like when you watch it instead of celebrating it.
A sixth week mid-band
Equities 52.9% (band 30 to 60), fixed income 33.1% (25 to 50), cash 10.2% (5 to 20), gold 3.9% (0 to 8). Nothing has drifted far enough to force a decision, and the mandate does not reward inventing one.
Two counters, a third of the book
NMB (17.7%) and Vodacom (15.3%) are 32.9% of the model book. That sits inside every band, because the mandate sets no single-name cap. Naming the gap is honest; closing it; if it should be closed; is a written rule change, not a reflex after two weeks of noticing it.
The long end printed; the front end still hasn't
The newest 25-year auction the book reads is 5 August at 11.48%, against 11.89% at the prior 25-year auction on 24 June; 41bp lower. Treasury bills are still on auction 1203 (15 July): 91-day 3.35%, 182-day 4.78%, 364-day 7.03%; a fourth week with no new front-end print, the short end still ~290bp below the 6.25% policy rate.
The duration idea got an answer, and the answer was “wait”
For four weeks the book has had one dated thesis on the table and no evidence to act on it: extend duration while the long end pays and the front end sits pinned below inflation. Some evidence finally arrived; and it argued for patience rather than action.
The long end came in, not out. A 25-year auction at 11.48% on 5 August is 41bp below the same tenor's 11.89% in late June. Falling auction yields are good for a bond sleeve already held; the book's existing T-bond allocation is worth more, not less; but they make the case for adding duration weaker than it was a month ago, not stronger. The Ghost had been waiting to be paid to extend. It is now being paid slightly less. That is a reason to leave the idea on the table, dated and unexecuted, rather than to hurry it.
Meanwhile the front end has not moved at all, because it has not been auctioned in the series the book reads since 15 July. A 91-day bill at 3.35% against 4.0% headline inflation (Bank of Tanzania Monthly Economic Review, June) is still a negative real yield; which is exactly why the August allocation put new savings out the curve rather than into the bill ladder. Nothing this week changed that reasoning.
One macro reading is worth holding next to the turnover number. The Bank of Tanzania's latest review put private-sector credit growth at 28.1%. The two counters that carried 85.4% of the week's money are the two largest lenders on the board. Those two facts sit together comfortably, and comfort is precisely when to say what is not established: one strong monthly credit reading is not yet proof of durable depth, and a tape carried by two names is not yet proof of a broad market. The book is recording both and claiming neither.
Two counters the book does not own
Last week's note owned an uncomfortable fact: Tanga Cement (TCCL) had risen sharply on strong results while the book's cement holding, Twiga, fell. Between 3 and 7 August, TCCL fell from TSh 4,520 to TSh 3,710Unavailable−17.9%; and was the board's largest decliner on 7 August (−11.67% on the session). The book still does not own it. The point is not that the Ghost was vindicated; it is that one week is far too short a window to settle either last note's discomfort or this one's relief.
MCB is the other one. Two weeks ago it slid from TSh 660 to TSh 285 (−56.8%); since 3 August it has run from TSh 285 to TSh 470 (+64.9%), including +14.63% on 7 August alone. No issuer filing explaining either leg appeared in the window this note reads. The book holds none of it, and for the same reason it declined to guess at the fall, it declines to explain the rebound. A price the book cannot source a cause for is a price it will describe and not interpret.
Why hold; a sixth week
Every sleeve is mid-band, so there is no drift to correct. The one dated thesis on the table got fresh evidence, and the evidence said the opportunity narrowed; so acting now would be acting because evidence arrived rather than because it pointed anywhere. And the week's model P&L, small as it was, came almost entirely from one holding, the same holding as last week. That is an argument for studying the book's concentration rule, not for adding to the counter that keeps carrying it.
Nothing was bought, nothing was sold. The work actually outstanding is a written one: whether a model book with no single-name cap should have one, and what it would be. That is a mandate question, and mandate questions get published as their own decision; not slipped into a weekly note because the number was convenient.
The date already in the diary
NMB's approved one-for-ten share subdivision takes effect on 24 August 2026 (issuer notice, approved 24 July, announced 27 July). The published calendar runs: 19 August last cum-split trading day, 20 to 21 August trading suspension, 21 August register closure, 21 to 23 August register update, 24 August effective with trading resuming on the new basis. A subdivision multiplies the share count and divides the price by the same factor: the units change, the value and every holder's proportional ownership do not.
For the model book that means its NMB mark will step from a ~TSh 17,000-order price to a ~TSh 1,700-order price in a single session. That is a mechanical basis break, not a loss, and it will be labelled as one on the day. Flagging it two weeks out, for the second week running, is the whole point of writing a book in public: nobody should have to reverse-engineer it from a chart.
Otherwise the discipline for the week is unchanged. Watch whether turnover finds doors other than the two banks. Watch whether a new bill auction reconnects the front end toward the 6.25% policy rate. And hold what the thesis owns until something other than a narrow tape argues otherwise.
UnavailableThe Ghost. Hypothetical and educational only; a model book, not real money, and never advice.