The national bank system had significant flaws that hurt rural economies during the late nineteenth century; however, the urgency of the country at the start of the war ‘made such banking legislation fi nancially desirable and politically feasible’. Th e ‘exhausted condition of the Treasury’ that began before the war, and continued through 1863, compelled reluctant lawmakers to adopt a new system of national banking. Chase expressed his earnest desire for a  ‘circulation of notes bearing a common impression and authenticated by a common authority’, in both his 1861 and 1862 Annual Reports to Congress. He wanted a system of national banks established that would facilitate the distribution of this common money. He did not wish to create a new model of banks; nor did he wish to resurrect the Bank of the United States. Instead he based his vision of the national banks on the New York Free Banking law; ultimately this antebellum measure would become the basis for the national banking system. The difference would come from consistency and oversight; whereas the individual states had a spurious system of regulation, the National Bank system would have national government oversight. Bonds of the national government, not state bonds or speculative railroad bonds, would provide the basis for the reserves for these banks. ‘Th e people in their ordinary business would find the advantages of uniformity in currency; uniformity in security’, and have a ‘safeguard against depreciation’, said Chase.

Corporate bond investors should target industries with a balanced business risk and financial risk profile. In mature industries cash flows become increasingly predictable and capital expenditures of companies tend to stabilize.

In such an industry the task is to select those companies who succeeded in controlling their cost structures and operate at efficient levels.

Those sectors will show a stable credit trend. Structural changes might push a whole industry into a declining stage. Companies out of those industries will experience structural losses, hence their credit metrics will deteriorate. Management will have no options available to stop this trend. In a next step the competitive environment of an industry has to be analyzed.

The 5-Forces diagram by Michael E. Porter summarizes best the interaction of an industry with its economic environment. An understanding of those relationships is essential for the projection of credit trends in a sector. The competitive environment determines profit margins and the pricing power of companies.

For a fixed income investor the best investments will be in sectors whose life cycle is in stages 3 and 4. Stage 1 is characterized by high business and financial risk. The rewards can be substantial but fatal losses can occur as well. The traditional financing sources for early stage industries are venture capital, private equity followed by the equity market. In stage 2 an industry will experience accelerating growth in sales and profits, but it can be assumed that all generated funds will be reinvested to grow the business, and financial discipline will not be a priority to management. Bondholder unfriendly corporate actions across the industry will increase the downside potential for corporate bond investors.

Finally, while the subjects of industry analysis and the identification of relative value between sectors are covered in more detail below, it should be noted that the sector allocation has a substantial influence on the risk profile of a corporate bond portfolio. Sectors differ not only with respect to the goods or services they produce, but also with respect to their sensitivity to the economic environment. Therefore, investors usually distinguish between cyclical and noncyclical sectors. In general, cyclical industries are those where the ability to generate revenues and cash flows is closely linked to the business cycle. Usually, this is due to the fact that the companies in those sectors produce goods or services for private consumption or that belong in the category of capital expenditures. Typical examples of cyclical sectors therefore are the automotive and the capital goods sector.