All five rose, and this time nothing was deposited

Five complete verified sessions ran from 7 to 11 September, entirely clear of the 26 to 27 August index basis break, so the Friday-to-Friday comparison is available without a caveat for the second week running.

From the 4 September close to the 11 September close the All-Share (DSEI) rose from 4,523.81 to 4,658.31, about +2.97%. The domestic Tanzania Share Index (TSI) rose from 9,826.80 to 10,400.36, about +5.84%. Banks, Finance & Investment rose from 22,383.13 to 23,958.59, about +7.04%; Commercial Services from 2,957.35 to 3,119.11, about +5.47%; Industrial & Allied from 5,033.35 to 5,157.37, about +2.46%.

Last week those two headline indices pointed in opposite directions, and Chapter 17 explained why: the TSI covers domestic listings only, the DSEI covers every listing including cross-listed names, and the week’s biggest movers were cross-listed. This week that explanation was tested, and it held with almost unkind precision. The same three names went into reverse: KCB TSh 2,220 to TSh 2,120, about −4.50%; Nation Media (NMG) TSh 340 to TSh 325, about −4.41%; EABL TSh 6,030 to TSh 5,920, about −1.82%. With the cross-listed drag now working against the All-Share instead of for it, the domestic index outran it by roughly 287 basis points. Same mechanism, opposite sign, one week apart. A reader who took last week’s divergence as a glitch would have drawn the wrong lesson twice.

Breadth did not improve, which is the part worth sitting with. Across the 28 counters with a verified close on both Fridays, 10 rose, 10 fell and 8 were unchanged; narrower than last week’s 12 rose, 8 fell, 8 unchanged, in a week the domestic index rose 5.84%. Equity turnover for the five sessions was TZS 61.068bn, about −29.3% against the previous week’s TZS 86.391bn. And on every one of the five sessions a single counter supplied between 44.4% and 72.8% of that day’s turnover; it was CRDB on Monday and Tuesday and NMB on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. A rising index on falling turnover and even breadth is a distribution fact before it is a confidence signal.

Every mark reconciles to the verified DSE close. From 4 September to 11 September: NMB TSh 2,020 to TSh 2,190 (+8.42%), Tanzania Cigarette (TCC) TSh 12,600 to TSh 13,440 (+6.67%), CRDB TSh 2,730 to TSh 2,900 (+6.23%), Vodacom TSh 1,050 to TSh 1,110 (+5.71%), Twiga (TPCC) TSh 5,760 to TSh 5,770 (+0.17%).

On the model book’s unit counts that is about TSh 9.50m from NMB, TSh 5.00m from Vodacom, TSh 3.74m from TCC, TSh 2.89m from CRDB and about TSh 0.02m from Twiga, with roughly TSh 0.37m of indicative income accrued across the fixed-income and cash sleeves. Net model market P&L for the week: about +TSh 21.52m.

The hypothetical NAV rose from TSh 585.4m to TSh 606.9m, and this time the whole of that rise is market P&L. Contributed capital did not change; it stands where September’s savings left it on 1 September, at TSh 521.0m. Model market P&L rose from TSh 64.4m to TSh 85.9m, and the money-weighted return since inception on 6 June rose from +12.68% to +16.89%.

Those are the highest readings the ledger has carried on all three measures. One qualification, because it is the sort a book flatters itself by leaving out: this was not the largest weekly market P&L gain on record. The week to 28 August added about TSh 21.93m, marginally more than this week’s TSh 21.52m. Highest cumulative level and largest weekly step are different claims, and only the first one is true here.

Set the two weeks side by side and the accounting lesson this ledger has been rehearsing since July is finally shown from both ends. Last week: NAV up, return down, because a deposit is not a gain. This week: NAV up, return up, because the market did it. A book reporting one blended growth number would have printed a rise in both weeks and learned nothing from either.

Chapter 11, after the book’s strongest week to that point, said of its largest holding: examine the concentration, do not feed it. The two monthly allocations since have given equities nothing, which is what not feeding it looks like. Chapter 17, after that holding fell 5.16% in a week, declined to reduce it, on the grounds that trimming an allocation in the week it fell is reacting to a price rather than applying an analysis.

That reasoning has an obligation attached to it, and this is the week it comes due. If the book will not trim after a fall because that would be price-reactive, it cannot trim after a rise for the mirror-image reason. The holding is up 8.42% and is now 20.2% of the book. Symmetry says hold. It also says something less comfortable: a principle that produces “not this week” after a fall and after a rise is not yet a rule. It is a reason to keep postponing one.

So the Ghost is dating it. The single-name cap will be published as its own decision with the October allocation on 1 October 2026: whether a public model book with no single-name limit should have one, what the number is, whether it binds on purchases only or forces trims, and what happens when price drift alone breaches it. It will be written before the prices that follow it are known, which is the only condition under which such a rule means anything. A cap written after a drawdown is a reaction; a cap written after a record is at least honest about what it is giving up.

Nothing about that commitment changes this week’s allocation, and it is not a signal that a trim is coming. It may well conclude that a concentrated book is the correct expression of a small number of researched views, and say so in public with its reasoning attached.

Chapter 16 put TSh 1.5m of September savings into the bill ladder at the 364-day rung rather than the 91-day one, on the reasoning that the long rung paid a real yield and the short one did not. Eight days later, auction 1206 on 9 September cleared the 364-day at 6.4735%, about 17.57bp below auction 1205’s 6.6492%, while the 91-day rose about 2.61bp to 3.4222% and the 182-day fell to 4.9248%.

Then the other side of the real-yield calculation moved. The National Bureau of Statistics published the August National Consumer Price Index on 8 September, exactly the release the last chapter flagged as the dated thing to watch. Headline inflation is 4.3% year on year, up from 4.2% in July; food inflation fell to 3.7% from 4.1%. Against that, the 91-day bill lends at roughly 88bp below inflation and the 364-day at roughly 217bp above it.

So the comparison that drove the decision survived and the reward for it narrowed, both in the same fortnight. That is worth stating plainly rather than reporting only the half that flatters the reasoning. The relative case for the long rung is intact; the absolute case is thinner than it was on 1 September. The book also accrues its bond and bill sleeves at indicative yields rather than marking them to auction, a deliberate simplification stated on the method page, so none of that repricing appears in this week’s number. The fixed-income line in this book is smoother than a real one would be.

One item enters its third week open. A Tanzanian press report of a policy-rate adjustment has still not appeared on the Bank of Tanzania’s own published sheets, which continue to carry the CBR at 6.25% for Q3 2026. The Ghost carries 6.25% and keeps the report as a watch item, not a rate.

Tanga Cement (TCCL) was the week’s largest riser among counters with a verified close on both Fridays, from TSh 3,600 to TSh 3,970, about +10.28%, while the book’s own cement holding rose 0.17%. No issuer filing explaining the move appeared in the window this note reads. Five weeks ago this ledger asked out loud whether the book owns the wrong cement counter; this is the sharpest single data point that question has produced, and it is still one week. It stays an open question rather than becoming an answer because the week was dramatic.

Maendeleo Bank (MBP) rose 1.00%. Three chapters have now declined to explain a counter that moved roughly +17%, then roughly −7%, then barely at all, on no published cause. Saying so a third time is less interesting than saying it once, and that is precisely why it is worth doing.

The week’s largest falls on a board the book has no allocation in: DCB TSh 490 to TSh 445, about −9.18%; TTP TSh 475 to TSh 450, about −5.26%; NICO TSh 4,030 to TSh 3,870, about −3.97%; TOL TSh 1,830 to TSh 1,760, about −3.83%. Ten counters fell in a week the domestic index rose almost six percent. Naming what moved without owning it is part of the discipline; a ledger that reports only its own holdings is a highlight reel.

Three reasons, and the first one is closer to its edge than it has been.

First, there is still no drift a decision would correct. Equities 55.4% against a band of 30 to 60, fixed income 31.5%, cash 9.5%, gold 3.6%. Every sleeve is inside its mandate band. The equity sleeve has about 4.6 percentage points of headroom and used 1.6 of them this week without a single purchase, which is worth naming as a live number rather than a comfortable one. Price drift is how a band gets breached by a book that never trades.

Second, symmetry. The reasoning set out above applies in the direction that costs something: the book does not trim a holding in the week it rose 8.42% any more than it trimmed it in the week it fell 5.16%. The cap will be decided on 1 October, in writing, ahead of the prices that follow it.

Third, nothing in the week changed a thesis. Two indices agreeing after a week of disagreeing is the same measurement fact reported with a different sign, not new information about Tanzanian companies. One bill auction is one print. And a week whose gains came on 29% lower turnover with 10 of 28 counters rising is not the kind of evidence a book should reposition on.

Nothing was bought, nothing was sold. The book is unchanged for a tenth consecutive week, and for the first time the open mandate question has a publication date attached rather than an intention.

Four dated things. The next Bank of Tanzania Treasury bill auction, which on the fortnightly cadence follows auction 1206 of 9 September and shows whether the long rung’s 17.6bp give-back was a step or noise. The next 10-year bond auction, the first real test of whether 2 September’s 10.69% was a level or the start of a move. The 1 October allocation, which now carries the single-name cap decision as well as the month’s TSh 7m of savings. And the week to 18 September, which shows whether turnover recovers and whether breadth catches up with the index.

Two smaller marks. The official USD/TZS mean on the Bank of Tanzania’s own sheets moved from 2,637.5280 on 5 September to 2,637.9658 on 11 September, about +0.02%; an eighth consecutive near-flat week for the shilling. And the Mining Commission’s world-gold reference fell from $4,502 to $4,386 per troy ounce, about −2.58%, a second consecutive weekly fall. The model book’s gold sleeve is 3.6%, inside its 0 to 8% band, and stays where it is. A hedge that is only kept while it rises is not a hedge; this is the second week that sentence has had to earn its place.

The discipline for the week is short. When two indices agree, check whether they agree for a reason or by coincidence of scope. Read breadth and turnover before believing an index. And notice which weeks make a rule easy to postpone; they are usually the good ones.

; The Ghost. Hypothetical and educational only; a model book, not real money, and never advice.