The U.S. SEC is preparing to propose new regulations to eliminate the requirement for publicly listed companies to disclose their performance quarterly, changing it to twice a year

On Monday, media reports citing informed sources stated that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is preparing to propose a plan to eliminate the requirement for publicly traded companies to disclose their performance quarterly, allowing companies to choose to report their performance only twice a year.

Specifically, the new regulations are expected to make quarterly earnings disclosures optional rather than completely eliminating quarterly reports. The regulatory agency may announce the proposal as early as next month. To prepare for the proposal, the regulatory agency has communicated with officials from major exchanges to discuss how they would need to adjust their own regulations if the rules change. Once the proposal is announced, it will enter a public comment period, which typically lasts at least 30 days. After that, the SEC will vote on the proposal.

It should be noted that there is currently no guarantee that the proposal will ultimately be implemented.

The push to change to semi-annual earnings disclosures began to gain momentum at the end of last year. Some exchanges have submitted petitions to the U.S. SEC requesting the elimination of the quarterly earnings disclosure requirement. U.S. President Trump and SEC Chairman Paul Atkins have both expressed support for this idea.

For more than 50 years, U.S. publicly traded companies have reported their performance every three months. During Trump's first term, he briefly explored the possibility of changing to semi-annual earnings disclosures, but no progress was made at that time.

Supporters of reducing the frequency of disclosures believe that this change could help boost the declining number of publicly traded companies in the U.S. A common reason companies choose to remain private is that going public and maintaining a public status requires dealing with a large amount of time-consuming and costly administrative work.

However, any changes are likely to face opposition from investors, as they rely on the transparency provided by regular information disclosures.

After the rule adjustment in 2013, European publicly traded companies are no longer required to disclose financial performance quarterly. The UK also eliminated the quarterly earnings disclosure requirement about ten years ago, although many companies still choose to report their performance quarterly