- DDEP Bond Trading More Than Doubles to GH¢3.81bn as GFIM Turnover Falls 13.89%
Trading in Ghana’s restructured government bonds more than doubled last week as investors rotated heavily into Domestic Debt Exchange Programme securities, even as overall turnover on the Ghana Fixed Income Market declined 13.89%.
Total securities traded between September 7 and September 11 amounted to GH¢6.69 billion, down from GH¢7.77 billion in the preceding week, according to the GFIM weekly trading report.
Beneath that headline decline, however, the composition of activity changed substantially.
DDEP bond turnover surged 112.81% to GH¢3.81 billion from GH¢1.79 billion previously, making restructured government securities the single largest component of the market.
DDEP instruments accounted for about 56.90% of total weekly turnover, overtaking Treasury bills, where trading declined 30.97% to GH¢2.28 billion from GH¢3.30 billion.
Together, DDEP bonds and Treasury bills generated approximately 90.89% of all GFIM turnover, reinforcing the continued dominance of sovereign securities in Ghana’s fixed-income market.
The change in activity was particularly significant because it coincided with falling yields across most of the DDEP curve — a combination that points to stronger secondary-market demand for several restructured maturities.
The February 2027 DDEP bond recorded one of the largest repricings, with its yield declining 156 basis points to 10.26% from 11.82% in the previous week.
The February 2028 maturity fell even more sharply, shedding 175 basis points to 11.75% from 13.50%, while the February 2029 security declined 64 basis points to 13.01%.
Further along the curve, the February 2030 bond dropped 73 basis points to 13.06%, while the February 2031 maturity eased 66 basis points to 13.80%.
The February 2032 bond ended at 14.11%, down 31 basis points, and the February 2033 DDEP security fell 85 basis points to 14.20%.
At the longer end, the February 2034 security declined seven basis points to 14.66%. The February 2035 and 2036 maturities remained unchanged at 14.71%, while yields on the February 2037 and February 2038 securities fell 85 and 62 basis points respectively to 14.85% and 14.70%.
The broad compression in yields is significant because bond yields move inversely to prices. Falling yields alongside sharply higher turnover suggest investors were bidding more aggressively for selected DDEP instruments during the week.
That demand was concentrated in a relatively small number of maturities.
The February 2032 DDEP bond dominated outright trading with GH¢1.56 billion, equivalent to roughly 41% of total DDEP turnover.
The February 2029 bond followed with GH¢747.00 million, while the February 2031 maturity attracted GH¢554.64 million.
Trading in the February 2030 security amounted to GH¢245.75 million, while the February 2027 bond generated GH¢236.41 million.
The concentration suggests investors were selectively positioning along the medium portion of the restructured government yield curve rather than increasing exposure uniformly across all maturities.
New Government of Ghana bonds generated GH¢324.71 million, down 2.74% from GH¢333.86 million in the previous week and representing about 4.85% of market turnover.
Almost all of that activity came from the new four-year bond maturing in September 2030, which recorded approximately GH¢321.00 million in trades and closed the week at a yield of 12.04%.
The new seven-year bond maturing in March 2033 generated GH¢3.71 million and maintained a yield of 12.50%.
The sharpest weekly contraction came from sell/buy-back transactions.
SBB turnover plunged 93.96% to GH¢132.01 million from GH¢2.19 billion a week earlier, removing what had been a major source of activity from the previous week’s market.
Corporate securities also softened, with turnover declining 7.63% to GH¢151.59 million from GH¢164.11 million, while old Government of Ghana bonds generated only GH¢1.46 million, down 56.04%.
The weekly figures therefore present a more nuanced picture than the 13.89% decline in headline turnover suggests.
Overall market activity fell by more than GH¢1 billion, largely because of sharply lower SBB transactions and weaker Treasury-bill trading. But investors simultaneously committed substantially more capital to outright DDEP bond purchases.
That rotation could prove important for the development of Ghana’s post-restructuring domestic debt market.
Greater secondary-market liquidity in DDEP bonds, particularly when accompanied by declining yields, improves price discovery and can help establish a clearer sovereign yield curve after the disruptions created by the domestic debt exchange.
The next test will be whether the surge in DDEP demand persists.
If turnover remains strong and yields continue to compress across multiple maturities, it would suggest a deeper normalisation of investor appetite for Ghana’s restructured debt. If activity proves concentrated around isolated block trades, however, the improvement may be less broad than the headline GH¢3.81 billion turnover implies.
