- Treasury Bills Account for 60.49% Of GFIM Trading in Quieter Week
Trading on the Ghana Fixed Income Market slowed sharply in the week to November 6, with total reported turnover falling 43.65% to GH¢7.53 billion from GH¢13.36 billion in the previous week.
Treasury bills and Domestic Debt Exchange Programme bonds remained the market’s largest trading categories, together accounting for nearly all activity.
Treasury bills contributed GH¢4.55 billion, or about 60.49% of the week’s total. DDEP bonds accounted for GH¢2.78 billion, equivalent to 36.89%.
The concentration left comparatively little turnover in other securities: corporate securities generated GH¢34.08 million, while securities-borrowing-and-lending trades reached GH¢150.43 million.
The decline was broad across the two dominant segments. Treasury bill turnover fell 44.39% from GH¢8.19 billion a week earlier, while DDEP bond trading declined 44.64% from GH¢5.02 billion.
Their combined turnover fell by about GH¢6.77 billion, more than the overall market decline of GH¢5.83 billion. Increases in other categories partly offset the contraction.
That pattern points to a quieter week in the instruments that typically dominate the market’s reported value. It does not, by itself, show that investors are withdrawing from government securities or that confidence has weakened.
The figures measure trading during one week. They do not reveal whether securities were held to maturity, whether buyers were repositioning portfolios, or what prompted individual transactions.
Corporate securities offered one of the clearest gains. Trading rose 223.67% to GH¢34.08 million from GH¢10.53 million. In percentage terms, that was the largest increase among the substantial categories reported. In absolute terms, however, the gain was GH¢23.55 million, leaving corporate securities at only about 0.45% of total market turnover.
The increase is therefore a useful signal of activity, but not yet evidence that corporate debt is becoming a major source of financing. A deeper corporate market would require regular issuance, transparent information for investors and enough liquidity for securities to be bought and sold after issuance.
This week’s figures show more trading in the category, but the market remains heavily weighted towards government bills and DDEP instruments.
Securities-borrowing-and-lending trades also increased, by 22.55% to GH¢150.43 million. Commercial paper turnover more than doubled to GH¢11.22 million from GH¢5.31 million, a 111.26% rise. Both remain small relative to the market’s total.
New government bond trading, at GH¢816,492, was down 94.49% from GH¢14.81 million. Old government bonds recorded GH¢356,283, up from GH¢123,000, but the increase came from a very low base.
The market’s yield curve moved in different directions across maturities. Yields on several DDEP bonds increased: the four-year instrument rose from 10.93% to 11.25%, while the five-year yield increased from 12.49% to 12.75%. The six- and seven-year DDEP yields edged up by three basis points each, to 14.21% and 14.40%.
Further along the curve, the eight-year DDEP yield increased from 14.52% to 14.67%, and the ten-year yield rose from 15.01% to 15.24%. The 11-year yield held at 14.85%. By contrast, the 15-year DDEP yield declined from 15.42% to 15.00%.
Yields on the two new government bonds listed in the table also fell. The four-year new bond declined from 11.70% to 11.35%, while the seven-year new bond dropped from 14.58% to 12.60%. The latter is a 198-basis-point fall in the reported yield.
The weekly data show the movement but do not explain whether it reflected a change in investor expectations, trading conditions or the composition of transactions.
That uneven repricing matters more than a single headline movement in the curve. Several DDEP yields rose even as yields on the two new bonds and the 15-year DDEP instrument fell. The data do not support a simple conclusion that bond yields moved uniformly up or down. Investors will need to track subsequent weekly figures to see whether these changes persist.
The scale of the turnover decline also puts the week’s smaller category gains in perspective. Corporate securities and commercial paper grew quickly from low bases, while trading in Treasury bills and DDEP bonds contracted by billions of cedis.
If the objective is to broaden the market’s financing role, growth in corporate and private-sector instruments will need to become sustained and large enough to alter this balance.
For now, the figures describe a market in which government securities continue to dominate activity. Treasury bills alone represented about three-fifths of all reported turnover. Corporate securities, despite their strong percentage increase, accounted for less than one-half of one per cent.
The next question is whether this week’s lower activity marks a temporary fluctuation or the beginning of a longer shift in trading. The report provides no information on the causes of the decline, investor categories or the number of transactions.
Those details would help distinguish between reduced market participation and a week in which fewer, larger or differently timed trades took place.
The weekly wrap also contains an inconsistency in its comparison figures. Its narrative cites GH¢13.74 billion as the previous week’s turnover, while the detailed table records GH¢13.36 billion.
The reported 43.65% decline matches the detailed table’s GH¢13.36 billion figure. That distinction should be resolved in the underlying report so readers can assess the market’s movement against a consistent baseline.
