President Donald Trump floated the idea of letting publicly traded US companies report earnings twice a year instead of every three months. It’s a pitch, he says, to enable companies to focus on long-term growth without the pressure of quarterly deadlines and investor expectations. “This will save money, and allow managers to focus on properly running their companies,” the president wrote on Truth Social on Sept. 15. But transparency is a hallmark of financial markets, and some analysts and investors would balk at having less information from US companies.
This isn’t the first time Trump has proposed jettisoning quarterly reports. The US Securities and Exchange Commission vetted the idea after Trump raised it during his first term in office, but momentum faded when no consensus emerged. The SEC’s current chief, Paul Atkins, signaled that regulators might be more amenable to change now. The agency is “prioritizing” a plan to “further eliminate unnecessary regulatory burdens on companies,” the SEC said in a Sept. 15 statement.