- Ghana Fixed-Income Market Records GH¢1.49bn in Trades as Restructured Bonds Lead Activity
Trading activity on the Ghana Fixed Income Market reached GH¢1.49 billion on Wednesday, August 19, 2026, with bonds issued under the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme accounting for the majority of secondary-market turnover.
The official GFIM trading report showed total traded volume of GH¢1,493,672,532 across 474 transactions, with DDEP bonds contributing GH¢881.98 million and Treasury bills accounting for another GH¢582.23 million. Together, the two categories represented almost the entire day’s activity, underscoring the continued concentration of liquidity in government securities.
DDEP bonds generated GH¢881.98 million in turnover across 86 transactions, equivalent to 59.05% of total market volume. The segment was overwhelmingly driven by trading in the GOG-BD-11/02/31-A6147-1838-8.95 bond, which alone recorded GH¢645.20 million across 59 transactions.
That single instrument represented approximately 73.15% of all DDEP bond turnover and 43.20% of the entire fixed-income market’s trading volume for the session. It closed at a weighted average price of 82.2012 with a yield of 14.47%, making it the single most influential security in Wednesday’s trading.
The concentration provides an important indication of where secondary-market liquidity currently resides within Ghana’s restructured domestic debt universe. While a wider range of DDEP securities remains available to investors, trading can be heavily concentrated in particular maturities as institutions rebalance portfolios, manage liquidity requirements or adjust duration exposure.
Treasury bills remained the second-largest component of activity, recording turnover of GH¢582.23 million across 359 transactions. The segment accounted for 38.98% of total traded volume but nearly 75.74% of the day’s transaction count, illustrating the considerably higher frequency of trades in short-term government securities.
The largest Treasury bill trade was the GOG-BL-18/01/27-A6954-1990-0, which recorded GH¢95.90 million across 11 transactions. The instrument closed at a price of 97.2751 and a yield of approximately 6.71%.
That security represented about 16.47% of total Treasury bill turnover and 6.42% of overall GFIM volume.
Trading was spread across a broad range of Treasury bill maturities, with several instruments recording material volumes. Among the more active securities were bills maturing in March, April, July and August 2027, indicating demand across different points of the short-term government yield curve rather than concentration solely in the nearest maturities.
The level of Treasury bill activity remains significant for the broader fixed-income market because short-term government securities continue to serve as important liquidity-management instruments for banks, asset managers and institutional investors.
New Government of Ghana notes and bonds recorded comparatively limited activity. Turnover in the segment stood at just GH¢40,000 from two trades, accounting for only 0.003% of the day’s overall market volume.
The active new government bond was the GOG-BD-29/03/33-A6155-2001-12.50, which closed at 97.7826 with a yield of 13%.
There was no recorded activity in old Government of Ghana notes and bonds during the session.
Corporate bonds also remained a relatively small component of overall GFIM activity, recording GH¢1.69 million in turnover across eight transactions. That represented about 0.11% of total market volume.
The largest corporate bond trade involved the CMB-BD-30/08/27-A6302-1675-13.00, which recorded GH¢993,000 across six transactions and closed at 101.5076. The security accounted for approximately 58.82% of corporate bond turnover for the session.
The relatively modest level of activity in corporate securities continues to illustrate the dominance of sovereign instruments within Ghana’s fixed-income market.
Government securities remain significantly more liquid than corporate debt, reflecting both the greater stock of sovereign instruments available and the preference of many institutional investors for government-backed assets.
Sell/buy-back transactions involving Government of Ghana bonds added another GH¢27.73 million from 19 trades.
The largest transaction in that category involved the GOG-BD-13/02/29-A6145-1838-8.65 DDEP security, which recorded GH¢21.23 million from six trades. The instrument carried a yield of 12.00% and a weighted average closing price of 92.9504.
That security accounted for approximately 76.55% of total sell/buy-back activity.
The composition of Wednesday’s market therefore presents a clear picture: liquidity was overwhelmingly concentrated in restructured government bonds and Treasury bills, while corporate securities and newly issued government bonds played only a marginal role.
DDEP securities accounted for 59.05% of turnover and Treasury bills another 38.98%, meaning the two segments together represented approximately 98.03% of total GFIM trading volume.
The imbalance is particularly noteworthy because DDEP bonds, once affected by severe liquidity concerns following the domestic debt restructuring, are now generating substantial secondary-market activity in selected instruments. High turnover does not by itself imply that liquidity is evenly distributed across the entire DDEP curve, but Wednesday’s figures show that some restructured securities are attracting significant transaction volumes.
For investors, the concentration of trading around a small number of securities also matters for price discovery. A bond that accounts for more than 43.00% of an entire market session can exert a disproportionate influence on perceptions of activity, even where many other maturities trade only lightly.
The broader test for the Ghana Fixed Income Market will therefore be whether liquidity gradually deepens across a wider range of government and corporate securities.
For Wednesday, however, the market was unmistakably driven by one theme: DDEP bonds returned to the centre of fixed-income activity, led by a GH¢645.20 million trade in the 2031 maturity, while Treasury bills provided the bulk of transaction frequency across the market.
