- Government Securities Drive Friday’s GH¢1.20bn Fixed-Income Turnover
The Ghana Fixed Income Market recorded GH¢1.20 billion in traded volume across 378 transactions on Friday, November 6, with domestic government securities accounting for almost all activity.
Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP) bonds and Treasury bills together represented more than 99% of the day’s volume, while corporate bonds and commercial paper attracted comparatively little trading.
The market report recorded total volume of GH¢1.197 billion. DDEP bonds contributed GH¢682.01 million from 32 trades, while Treasury bills accounted for GH¢503.25 million across 314 transactions.
The concentration shows two distinct patterns: DDEP bonds generated the larger share of traded value through fewer transactions, while Treasury bills were traded much more frequently.
Together, the two government security categories made up about 99.03% of the day’s turnover. DDEP bonds alone represented approximately 56.98% of volume, and Treasury bills about 42.05%.
The dominance of these instruments means the headline total provides only a partial picture of activity across the fixed-income market: most of the day’s trading was concentrated in government debt.
The transaction count sharpens that contrast. Treasury bills accounted for 314 of the 378 trades, or roughly 83.07%, despite contributing a smaller share of volume than DDEP bonds.
The average Treasury bill transaction was therefore much smaller than the average DDEP bond transaction. This pattern suggests that bill trading involved a broader number of smaller deals, while DDEP activity was concentrated in larger blocks.
The market’s activity outside government securities was limited. Corporate bonds recorded GH¢5.78 million across 10 trades, while commercial paper reached GH¢2.02 million from seven trades.
Sell-and-buy-back transactions involving government notes and bonds totalled GH¢3.75 million across 14 trades. Old government notes and bonds recorded GH¢65,400 in one transaction. No trades were reported for new government notes and bonds or green and sustainable bonds.
These figures do not establish a long-term trend from one trading day, but they highlight how strongly Friday’s market depended on sovereign instruments. Corporate bonds and commercial paper together contributed less than 0.66% of total volume.
That small share raises a broader market-development question: how far does the fixed-income market provide companies with an active route to financing, beyond the government securities that dominate turnover?
The report lists Cocoa Processing Company’s GH¢5.78 million bond as the day’s corporate bond activity. The instrument closed at GH¢103.01. Cocoa Capital PLC’s commercial paper recorded GH¢2.02 million across seven trades and closed at GH¢100.43.
These transactions show that corporate instruments were present, but their scale remained small beside DDEP bonds and Treasury bills.
Activity in DDEP securities was concentrated in specific instruments. The detailed DDEP schedule records GH¢211.00 million traded in the 2029 bond with an 8.65% coupon, followed by GH¢104.18 million in the 2037 bond with a 9.85% coupon and GH¢100 million in the 2030 bond with an 8.80% coupon.
Those trades accounted for a substantial share of the category’s reported GH¢682.01 million total.
The schedule also shows that yields varied across DDEP instruments. The 2029 bond with an 8.65% coupon closed at a yield of 14.21%, while the 2037 bond with a 9.85% coupon closed at 15.49%.
Treasury bill yields in the summary’s largest-volume listing ranged from 3.56% to 9.06%, depending on the instrument. The figures reflect different maturities and securities; they should not be treated as a single market rate or as evidence of a uniform change in borrowing costs.
The concentration of trading in government paper is important for both public borrowing and private-sector financing. A deep government securities market can provide investors with instruments across maturities and help establish reference prices.
But when company debt accounts for only a small portion of daily turnover, businesses may have fewer opportunities to raise funds directly from investors and investors may have fewer corporate instruments to choose from.
The number of trades also needs to be read with the reported volume. A large transaction count in Treasury bills indicates frequent turnover, but it does not mean that activity was evenly distributed across issuers or securities.
Likewise, substantial DDEP volume in a few bonds can lift the market-wide total without broad participation across government and corporate instruments.
Friday’s data therefore show an active session in aggregate, but a concentrated one in composition. Nearly every cedi of reported volume was tied to DDEP bonds or Treasury bills. Corporate bonds, commercial paper and repurchase-style transactions remained small by comparison, and new government and sustainable bond categories recorded no trades.
The next test for the fixed-income market is whether activity can extend beyond the instruments that already dominate turnover. More consistent trading in corporate debt could give companies an additional financing channel and broaden the range of assets available to investors.
For now, the November 6 report records a market whose trading depth was concentrated in government securities, with private debt playing a modest role in the day’s activity.
