From the corporation's viewpoint, one important factor in establishing a sinking fund is that its own bonds generally have a higher yield than do government bonds; hence, the company saves more interest by retiring its own bonds than it could earn by buying government bonds. This factor causes firms to favor the second procedure. Investors also would prefer the annual retirement procedure if they thought that interest rates were more likely to rise than to fall, but they would prefer the government bond purchases program if they thought rates were likely to fall. In addition, bondholders recognize that, under the government bond purchase scheme, each bondholder would be entitled to a given amount of cash from the liquidation of the sinking fund if the firm should go into default, whereas under the annual retirement plan, some of the holders would receive a cash benefit while others would benefit only indirectly from the fact that there would be fewer bonds outstanding.

On balance, investors seem to have little reason for choosing one method over the other, while the annual retirement method is clearly more beneficial to the firm. The consequence has been a pronounced trend toward annual retirement and away from the accumulation scheme.