- Fixed-Income Market Trading Cools Sharply After GH¢1.56bn Opening-Week Surge
Trading activity on the Ghana Fixed Income Market fell sharply on Tuesday, October 6, as reduced demand for Treasury bills and an abrupt decline in repurchase transactions pulled total market turnover below GH¢1bn.
Total traded volume declined to GH¢807.97m from GH¢1.56bn in the previous session, representing a 48.2 per cent contraction.
The number of transactions also fell from 7,337 to 4,341, a decline of 40.8 per cent, indicating that the slowdown was reflected in both the value and frequency of trading.
The retreat followed a strong Monday session in which Treasury bills and sell-buyback transactions drove market activity. Tuesday’s figures suggest that the surge was not sustained, although underlying demand for selected short-term securities and post-debt-exchange bonds remained visible.
Treasury bills continued to dominate the market, accounting for GH¢580.70m, or 71.9 per cent of total turnover. This was nevertheless 44.9 per cent below the GH¢1.05bn recorded in the preceding session.
Domestic Debt Exchange Programme bonds generated GH¢205.40m, equivalent to 25.4 per cent of market activity. Turnover in the segment fell 40.9 per cent from GH¢347.63m on Monday.
Together, Treasury bills and DDEP bonds accounted for 97.3 per cent of Tuesday’s trading, underscoring the limited diversification of secondary-market liquidity.
The largest Treasury-bill transaction involved the security maturing on August 23, 2027, which recorded GH¢115.33m in four trades. It closed at a yield of approximately 9.20 per cent and a price of GH¢92.4972.
The bill maturing on December 7, 2026, followed closely with GH¢114.13m traded. It accounted for 4,064 transactions about 94.6 per cent of all Treasury-bill trades and closed at a yield of 5.43 per cent.
This concentration reveals two different types of market participation.
The August 2027 bill attracted a small number of large transactions, pointing to institutional block trading. The December 2026 instrument, by contrast, recorded thousands of transactions, suggesting substantially broader participation in the shorter-dated security.
Together, the two instruments accounted for about 39.5 per cent of total Treasury-bill turnover.
Other notable trades included GH¢104.68m in the bill maturing on January 18, 2027, at a closing yield of 4.89 per cent, and GH¢84.72mn in the September 6, 2027 maturity at 9.36 per cent.
The December 7, 2026 bill’s closing yield edged up from approximately 5.40 per cent in the previous session to 5.43 per cent. The marginal increase suggests that buyers demanded slightly more compensation, although the move was too small to indicate a broad repricing of short-term sovereign risk.
Trading in the DDEP segment was concentrated entirely in four instruments.
The February 2032 bond with a 9.10 per cent coupon led the segment, recording GH¢97.38m in a single transaction. That represented 47.4 per cent of total DDEP bond turnover.
The security closed at a yield of 14.19 per cent, down from 14.27 per cent in the previous session, while its price increased from GH¢81.0342 to GH¢81.2750. The movement points to firmer demand for that particular maturity.
The February 2029 bond recorded GH¢55m across three trades and closed at a yield of 13.93 per cent, up from 13.72 per cent. Its closing price declined to GH¢89.6261.
The February 2028 bond generated GH¢37.80m and closed at 12.49 per cent, five basis points above the previous session. The February 2030 instrument accounted for GH¢15.23m, with its yield rising by 25 basis points to 14.30 per cent.
The yield movements were therefore mixed. Stronger pricing in the 2032 maturity contrasted with upward yield adjustments in the 2028, 2029 and 2030 securities.
This does not yet amount to a uniform change in investor expectations across the DDEP curve. It instead suggests selective demand determined by maturity, liquidity and investors’ portfolio requirements.
The sharpest decline occurred in sell-buyback transactions involving government securities.
Turnover in that segment fell 90.5 per cent to GH¢14.93m from GH¢156.63m in the previous session.
The February 2038 DDEP bond was the most active repo instrument, accounting for GH¢6.76m across seven transactions at a yield of 13.41 per cent.
The steep fall in repo volumes was responsible for almost GH¢141.70m of the overall reduction in market turnover. It may reflect a temporary decline in short-term liquidity-management trades rather than a structural weakening of demand for government securities.
However, if repo activity remains depressed over several sessions, it could indicate more cautious balance-sheet positioning among market participants.
Corporate bonds recorded GH¢6.79m across 15 transactions after no activity in the preceding session.
The largest trade was a GH¢2.88m transaction in a security identified by ISIN GHCCCPL00065, which closed at GH¢99.9698.
Two Cocoa Marketing Board securities generated a combined GH¢3.37m. The August 2028 instrument recorded GH¢1.75mn at a closing price of GH¢103.3214, while the August 2027 maturity contributed GH¢1.62m at GH¢102.1328.
A pension-related corporate bond maturing in August 2031 added GH¢540,260 in turnover.
The reappearance of corporate-bond activity provides a modest sign of market breadth, but its 0.8 per cent share of total turnover shows that Ghana’s corporate debt market remains small relative to government securities.
New government bonds recorded just GH¢150,000, down 74.7 per cent from the previous session. No trades were recorded in old government bonds.
The immediate market outlook remains one of strong Treasury-bill dominance, selective DDEP demand and volatile day-to-day turnover.
Tuesday’s decline should be interpreted against the unusually high GH¢1.56bn traded on Monday. A single session is insufficient to establish a sustained weakening in investor appetite.
The more important indicators will be whether Treasury-bill volumes remain above half a billion cedis, whether DDEP yields develop a consistent direction across maturities and whether repo activity recovers.
For now, the market remains liquid in aggregate but narrowly concentrated. Investors continue to prefer government securities, while corporate issuers attract only a small fraction of available secondary-market liquidity.
That concentration provides the government with a dependable domestic investor base, but it also shows how far Ghana’s fixed-income market must travel before corporate debt becomes a meaningful alternative to sovereign securities.
