Trump wants to abolish quarterly earnings reports in favor of biannual. Here’s what that would mean.

President Trump says he wants to ditch a staple of U.S. financial markets: quarterly earnings reports.

If Mr. Trump’s push is successful, the change would eliminate a requirement that’s been in place for 55 years, with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, mandating quarterly reports since 1970.

Instead, the president said he wants to replace quarterly reporting with a new SEC rule requiring that companies disclose their financial data every six months. Providing companies with a longer ramp for issuing their reports would “save money, and allow managers to focus on properly running their companies,” Mr. Trump wrote on Monday in his social media post. 

“Did you ever hear the statement that, ‘China has a 50 to 100 year view on management of a company, whereas we run our companies on a quarterly basis???’ Not good!!!” he added. 

The idea is far from new, with academic and business experts suggesting such a change in years past, for similar reasons as those cited by Mr. Trump. During his first term, Mr. Trump had asked the SEC to examine the three- versus six-month reporting requirement, although no change was made.

But Mr. Trump’s renewed push could make such a corporate overhaul more likely today, TD Cowen analyst Jaret Seiberg said in a Monday research report.

“We start with a 60% probability that the SEC switches to semi-annual from quarterly reporting, though the fact that this is an easy win for [SEC Chairman Paul] Atkins to deliver to Trump causes our bias to be that the prospects for action are more likely to rise than to fall,” Seiberg noted. 

Here’s what to know about the idea.

Why is Mr. Trump proposing this now? 

There are some new pushes from the corporate sector. 

The Long Term Stock Exchange — a national securities exchange — said last week that it plans to petition the SEC to do away with the quarterly requirement. The San Francisco-based exchange lists companies focused on long-term goals, with its founder Eric Ries criticizing the financial markets for pushing businesses to prioritize short-term wins.

The proposed change also aligns with the Trump administration’s goal to ease regulatory burdens on companies, which it has said would help unlock economic growth by reducing businesses’ costs. 

What’s the benefit? 

Supporters of the change say quarterly reporting is too costly and time-consuming and discourages companies from wanting to go public. They also say company executives focus too much on hitting quarterly earnings targets and not enough on long-term planning.

Is there a downside? 

Those who favor quarterly earnings say the reports provide investors with valuable financial updates and make them aware of any new risks the company is facing. Six-month reviews would deprive investors of those important insights, they argue.

“This might be great for long-term company builders, but terrible for public market investors who need timely data,” noted one executive, Sam Kampner, the founder of analysis firm SalesCraft AI, on social media on Monday. “[H]aving less information means you’d be making less-informed investment decisions.”

What does the data show?

A 2018 study published in the Harvard Business Review looked at a similar change in the U.K., which stopped requiring quarterly reporting in 2014. The results were “nuanced and falls somewhere between the two extreme narratives,” Shivaram Rajgopal, a professor at Columbia Business School, wrote in the Harvard report.

“Moving away from quarterly reporting did not end corporate short-termism and earnings management, but nor did it destroy all transparency, leaving investors in the dark,” he added.

What’s the timeframe for making a change? 

At least half a year, with TD Cowen’s Seiberg noting that he believes it will take the SEC six months to create a proposal based on economic data. 

“Key indicators of the issue gaining momentum will be if Atkins discusses the issue in his public speeches in the coming months and if it ends up on the agenda for the SEC’s Investor Advisory Committee,” he said.

The Associated Press

contributed to this report.