President Donald Trump wants corporations to “no longer be forced” to report earnings every quarter.
In a Truth Social post on Monday, he said companies should instead only be required to post earnings every six months, pending the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s approval. This change would break a quarterly reporting mandate that’s been in place since 1970.
“This will save money, and allow managers to focus on properly running their companies,” Trump wrote.
Trump added that China has a “50 to 100 year view on management of a company,” as opposed to U.S. companies required to report four times in a fiscal year. China’s Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX) allows companies to submit voluntary quarterly financial disclosures, but only requires them to report their financial results twice a year.
During his first term, Trump publicly asked the SEC on X, then still known as Twitter, to study shifting company disclosures from a quarterly to semiannual basis, stating business leaders felt less frequent reporting would allow for greater flexibility and long-term planning.
He told reporters at the time that he got the idea from CEOs.
“It made sense to me because, you know, we are not thinking far enough out,” Trump said in 2018. “We’ve been accused of that for a long time, this country. So we’re looking at that very, very seriously.”
No change came from the SEC.
A revived debate
“President Trump has revived an old idea emphasizing the costs of quarterly filings, the distraction from long-term goals, and how they reinforce Wall Street’s obsession with beating short-term expectations,” Usha Haley, a professor at the Barton School of Business at Wichita State University, told Fortune.
For his part, SEC Chair Paul Atkins has explicitly called for more transparency as he’s taken control of the regulatory body this year.
But companies keep pushing back. Last week, the San Francisco-based Long Term Stock Exchange said it planned to petition the SEC to end its quarterly reporting requirement. The exchange lists companies focused on long-term goals.
Critics of the move argue that it might reduce transparency for investors.
Chad Cummings, a CPA and attorney at Cummings & Cummings Law, told Fortune semiannual reporting enables companies to hide “red flags” like deteriorating cash flows or abrupt changes in auditor language, which can lead to unsavory practices like concealment of liquidity crises, accounting fraud, and whistleblower retaliation.
“Removal of quarterly earnings sabotages valuation models and tilts power to insiders,” Cummings, who has active bar admissions in the U.S. Tax and Bankruptcy courts, added.
SEC approval would face internal resistance, statutory barriers, and potential litigation, as the SEC’s investor protection mandate requires “reasonably current” disclosure, Cummings said.
If regulators stopped requiring companies to report earnings every quarter without having clear legal authority, the decision could be challenged in court under the Administrative Procedure Act, a federal law that governs how U.S. administrative agencies create regulations, he warned.
Meanwhile, Haley also said Trump’s nod to China’s financial disclosure mandates misses the point.
“The United States is not China,” she said. “Our markets derive their strength and global dominance through transparency, investor protections, and a long tradition of disclosures… Weakening those guardrails, while invoking efficiency risks, undermines investors’ confidence, the foundation of U.S. capital markets, which China does not have.”
