SEC Preparing Proposal To Eliminate Quarterly Reporting Requirement

Very soon,10-Qs may be a thing of the past.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is preparing a proposal to eliminate the requirement to report earnings quarterly and instead give companies the option to share results twice a year, the WSJ reports citing people familiar with the matter.

In preparation for the proposal - which could be published as soon as April - regulators have been talking to officials at the major exchanges to discuss how they may need to adjust their rules. Once published, the proposal will be subject to the usual public comment period. After that period, which typically lasts at least 30 days, the SEC will vote on it. There are no guarantees it will ultimately happen.

The push for semiannual reporting gained steam late last year. As the WSJ reported last September, the Long-Term Stock Exchange petitioned the SEC to eliminate the quarterly earnings report requirement. Within days, President Trump and SEC Chairman Paul Atkins both said they supported the idea.

Publicly traded US companies have reported results every three months for the past 50-plus years. Trump briefly explored the idea of moving to semiannual earnings reports during his first term, but the effort went nowhere.

Those in favor of less-frequent reporting requirements believe a switch could help boost the shrinking number of public companies in the U.S. Among the reasons companies cite as to why they remain private is the time-consuming and costly clerical work required to list and maintain publicly traded shares.

Any change is likely to face opposition from investors who rely on the transparency of regular disclosures.

While the rule is expected to make quarterly reporting optional, and not eliminate quarterly reports altogether, it is unlikely that many companies will voluntarily subject themselves to intense public scrutiny at a time when AI is making decades-old corporate moats disappear virtually overnight. Alternatively, it could also make capital raising far more challenging for companies that opt out since investors could be anxious to allocate capital in companies that do not publish up to date snapshots of their financial matters.