Unease after Trump's push to end quarterly earnings

For more than half a century publicly-traded US corporations have reported earnings at quarterly intervals,but during an early-morning wave of social media posts on Monday, President Donald Trump reignited a longstanding debate over the requirement.

- JOEL LEON, FELICE MARANZ & NATALIA KNIAZHEVICH

Trump is pushing for a six-month reporting schedule as opposed to the current every three-months format. Ending-quarterly results in favour of a six-month reporting schedule would “save money, and allow managers to focus on properly-running their companies,” Trump said.

It’s not the first time Trump has weighed in on the frequency of earnings. Back in 2018, the Republican tweeted in favour of the six-month system, citing discussions with “some ofthe world’stop business leaders” and noting that it would allow for greater flexibility and save money.

TD Cowen analyst Jaret Seiberg is assigning 60 per cent odds that the Securities and Exchange Commission takes action to implement the six-month reporting schedule. Others on Wall Street were more skeptical a change would happen while some pointed to risks like less accountability and more volatility. Quarterly earnings were mandated by the SEC in 1970 as part of the government agency’s decades-long push to increase transparency in the aftermath ofthe 1929 stock market crash.