- Fixed-Income Turnover Reaches GH¢2.18bn, with Sovereign Securities Taking 99.91%
Trading activity on the Ghana Fixed Income Market reached GH¢2.18 billion on Thursday, August 20, with post-Domestic Debt Exchange Programme bonds and Treasury bills accounting for the overwhelming majority of transactions as investors remained heavily concentrated in sovereign securities.
The official GFIM trading report showed total activity of GH¢2.184 billion across 1,314 trades, with DDEP bonds contributing GH¢953.38 million, equivalent to 43.66% of the market total.
Treasury bills followed closely with GH¢921.67 million, or 42.21%, while sell/buy-back transactions involving government notes and bonds contributed another GH¢306.55 million, representing 14.04%.
Together, DDEP bonds and Treasury bills alone accounted for 85.87% of overall trading activity, illustrating the continuing dominance of government securities in Ghana’s secondary fixed-income market.
Corporate bonds, by contrast, recorded just GH¢1.94 million across 10 trades, representing only 0.09% of the overall market. Old government notes and bonds registered GH¢2,873 in activity, while no trades were recorded in the new government notes and bonds segment.
The numbers provide a sharp illustration of the structural imbalance within Ghana’s fixed-income market: liquidity is returning strongly to sovereign debt, but the corporate segment remains exceptionally thin.
Activity in the DDEP segment was led by the 2023-GC-5 bond maturing on February 11, 2031, which recorded GH¢401.26 million across 31 trades. That single security represented about 42.09% of all DDEP bond activity during the session.
The bond ended the day at a yield of 14.46%, marginally below its 14.47% opening yield, while its closing price stood at about 82.24.
Several other restructured government bonds also attracted sizeable flows. The 2032 GC-6 bond recorded GH¢102.12 million, while the 2034 GC-8 security generated GH¢103.54 million. The shorter 2027 GC-1 instrument attracted GH¢104.62 million.
The distribution indicates that investors are trading across different points of the post-DDEP yield curve rather than concentrating exclusively in shorter maturities.
A functioning secondary market requires investors to be able to enter and exit positions across maturities, allowing prices and yields to provide clearer signals about expectations for interest rates, inflation and sovereign credit risk.
The largest Treasury-bill line identified in the GFIM summary recorded GH¢162.47 million across eight trades. The security, maturing on April 5, 2027, closed at a yield of approximately 6.69% and a price of 97.30.
Another Treasury security maturing on January 18, 2027 generated more than GH¢162 million in activity across 763 individual trades, highlighting significant transaction frequency within parts of the short-term government debt market.
The scale of Treasury-bill trading comes as Ghana’s interest-rate environment continues to adjust following the sharp disinflation and monetary easing seen over the past year.
Lower short-term yields change the relative attractiveness of different fixed-income instruments, potentially encouraging investors to move further along the maturity curve in search of higher returns.
While some shorter Treasury securities are trading at single-digit yields, a number of the longer-dated DDEP instruments continue to offer yields in the mid-teens, reflecting differences in maturity, coupon structures, liquidity and perceived risk.
Sell/buy-back trades also formed a meaningful part of Thursday’s activity, contributing GH¢306.55 million across 57 transactions.
The largest security in that category was the GC-4 DDEP bond maturing in February 2030, which recorded GH¢129.64 million across 13 transactions at a yield of 13.95%.
Such transactions are important to fixed-income market liquidity because they allow institutions to manage short-term funding and securities positions without necessarily undertaking outright purchases or sales.
Only two corporate securities recorded trading during the session, both issued by Ghana Cocoa Board. The COCOBOD bond maturing in August 2027 accounted for GH¢1.20 million, or 61.91% of corporate activity, while the August 2028 instrument contributed GH¢740,200.
No trading was recorded in the bonds listed under Letshego Ghana, Bayport Savings and Loans, Izwe Savings and Loans, Kasapreko or Quantum during the session.
A deep fixed-income market should not merely provide government with a liquid borrowing platform. It should also enable companies to raise longer-term funding from pension funds, insurers, asset managers and other investors as an alternative to traditional bank credit.
Thursday’s numbers show how far Ghana remains from that objective. Sovereign and sovereign-linked instruments accounted for virtually the entire GH¢2.18 billion traded, while corporate securities contributed less than one-tenth of one percent.
The immediate picture is therefore one of strong fixed-income activity but highly concentrated market depth.
Liquidity in DDEP bonds and Treasury bills is encouraging because it helps rebuild price discovery and investor confidence following Ghana’s domestic debt restructuring. But the next stage of capital-market development will require that liquidity to spread beyond the sovereign.
Until corporate bonds begin accounting for a materially larger share of transactions, Ghana may have an increasingly active fixed-income market without yet having a fully diversified one.
