- Treasury Bills Drive GH¢4.49 billion GFIM Trading Volume
Trading activity on the Ghana Fixed Income Market reached GH¢4.49 billion on Thursday, October 29, 2026, as investors concentrated overwhelmingly on Treasury bills and selected bonds issued under the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme.
The official GFIM trading report showed that a total nominal volume of GH¢4,493,981,978 changed hands across 535 transactions during the session.
Treasury bills accounted for GH¢3.50 billion of the day’s trading volume, representing 77.97% of overall activity. The instruments recorded 460 transactions, equivalent to 85.98% of the total number of trades executed across the market.
The strong concentration in Treasury bills suggests that investors continued to favour shorter-dated government securities, where liquidity was substantially deeper than in the medium- and long-term segments of the domestic debt market.
The most actively traded Treasury bill was the instrument maturing on September 27, 2027, which recorded a volume of GH¢924.43 million through five transactions. It closed at a yield of 9.30% and a price of GH¢92.16 per GH¢100 face value.
The October 4, 2027 Treasury bill followed with GH¢732.81 million traded across 14 transactions. The security ended the session at a yield of 9.38% and a closing price of GH¢91.94.
Another Treasury bill maturing on September 20, 2027 recorded GH¢642.78 million in volume through 20 transactions, the highest number of individual trades for any single Treasury instrument during the session. It closed at a yield of 9.22%.
The Treasury bill maturing on October 11, 2027 contributed a further GH¢538.97 million, although the volume was executed through only three transactions. Its closing yield stood at 9.46%.
Combined, these four securities generated approximately GH¢2.84 billion, accounting for about 81.02% of all Treasury bill activity and 63.19% of the entire fixed-income market’s reported trading volume.
The figures indicate that liquidity was not spread evenly across the Treasury bill curve. Rather, trading was concentrated in a small number of securities maturing between September and October 2027.
DDEP bonds were the second-largest market segment, recording GH¢942.56 million across 39 transactions. They accounted for 20.97% of total GFIM volume.
The DDEP bond maturing on February 13, 2029 dominated that category, recording GH¢633.80 million in nine transactions. The bond closed at a yield of 14.20% and a price of GH¢89.39 per GH¢100 face value.
That single instrument represented 67.24% of all DDEP bond activity and 14.10% of the market’s entire trading volume.
The February 10, 2032 DDEP bond followed with GH¢175.84 million traded across six transactions. It closed at a yield of 14.75% and a price of GH¢79.67.
Another GH¢107.30 million was recorded in the February 12, 2030 DDEP bond, which closed at a yield of 14.40% and a price of GH¢85.64.
The discount at which several DDEP bonds traded reflects the relationship between their coupon rates, remaining maturities and the yields required by investors. Longer-dated securities generally traded further below their face values as investors demanded compensation for duration, liquidity and reinvestment risks.
The February 2, 2038 DDEP bond, for instance, closed at a price of GH¢71.35 and a yield of 15.42%, while the February 3, 2037 instrument closed at GH¢71.44 with a yield of 15.47%.
Sell-and-buy-back transactions involving government securities contributed GH¢40.96 million across 32 trades, representing 0.91% of the market’s total volume.
The largest activity in this category involved the DDEP bond maturing on February 8, 2033. It recorded GH¢29.69 million through 12 transactions at a reported yield of 12.48%.
Sell-and-buy-back transactions provide a mechanism through which market participants can obtain short-term liquidity using securities as collateral. Although their share of the October 29 session was relatively small, such transactions are important for supporting liquidity management among financial institutions.
New government notes and bonds recorded GH¢5.46 million in a single transaction. The activity involved the seven-year government bond maturing on March 29, 2033, with a reported closing yield of 14.58% and price of GH¢91.48.
Corporate bond activity remained limited. Only GH¢960,000 was traded in that segment through three transactions.
All the corporate bond activity involved the Ghana Cocoa Board bond maturing on August 28, 2028. The security closed at GH¢102.97, slightly below its opening price of GH¢103.21 but above its face value.
There were no trades in old government notes and bonds, commercial paper, or green and sustainable bonds during the session.
The absence of activity in these categories underscores the narrow concentration of secondary-market liquidity. Government securities continued to dominate, while the corporate debt market remained relatively shallow.
For issuers seeking long-term local-currency financing, the low level of corporate bond activity remains a structural concern. A deeper corporate debt market would provide businesses with alternatives to bank lending and allow pension funds, insurers and other institutional investors to diversify their fixed-income portfolios.
The October 29 trading pattern nevertheless showed substantial liquidity within selected government securities. The GH¢4.49 billion recorded was driven mainly by large transactions in a limited number of Treasury bills and DDEP bonds rather than broadly distributed activity across the fixed-income market.
The central market signal was therefore not simply the headline volume. It was the continued preference for liquid government instruments, with shorter-dated Treasury bills attracting the largest share of investor demand and selected DDEP maturities accounting for most longer-term trading.
