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United States Businesses

President Calls for Six-Month Corporate Reporting Cycle, Citing Cost Savings (bbc.com) 114

Posted by msmash from the cadence-change dept.
President Donald Trump called Monday for companies to report earnings every six months instead of quarterly. Trump posted on social media that semi-annual reporting would save money and let managers focus on running companies. The SEC mandated quarterly reports in 1970. Trump made similar comments in 2018 that prompted SEC public comment but no regulatory changes.

Critics argue quarterly reporting increases costs and encourages short-term thinking. Supporters say frequent disclosures maintain investor trust and reduce market manipulation risks.

Further reading: The Renewed Bid To End Quarterly Earnings Reports.
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President Calls for Six-Month Corporate Reporting Cycle, Citing Cost Savings More

President Calls for Six-Month Corporate Reporting Cycle, Citing Cost Savings

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  • The real reason (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Monday September 15, 2025 @03:29PM (#65661534)

    Corporations every quarter: Record profits!

    Employees: How about some raises or better benefits?

    Corporations: We can't possibly afford that!

    • Re:The real reason (Score:5, Insightful)

      by garyisabusyguy ( 732330 ) on Monday September 15, 2025 @03:57PM (#65661610)

      Real reason? To delay any financial reporting that shows the negative economic impact of administration's policies

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Vlad_the_Inhaler ( 32958 )

        In this case I disagree - six months makes good sense in several ways. I wonder who managed to talk him into making a sensible suggestion for once.

        • Re:The real reason (Score:5, Insightful)

          by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Monday September 15, 2025 @04:45PM (#65661774)

          Real reason? To delay any financial reporting that shows the negative economic impact of administration's policies

          In this case I disagree - six months makes good sense in several ways. I wonder who managed to talk him into making a sensible suggestion for once.

          In this case, you both may be correct.

          • Re:The real reason (Score:4, Insightful)

            by larryjoe ( 135075 ) on Monday September 15, 2025 @05:52PM (#65661960)

            If a six-month reporting period is better, would a one-year period be even better? Three months does seem arbitrary, but six months seems just as arbitrary.

            Also, corporate reporting is similar to employee performance reviews in one respect. If you expect mostly criticism from your boss, less frequent performance reviews are better. However, for many workers at healthy companies, performance reviews are opportunities for raises and bonuses, so they want more frequent reviews.

        • something something stopped clocks...

        • As a code monkey working in several publicly traded companies, a 6 month reporting cycle is wonderful. The current 3 month reporting slows down development. Every 3 months we'd get a 1-2 week code freeze leading up to the quarterly shareholder call. That's disrupting. Non-public companies don't have this problem.

    • Corporations: We can afford to pay you much more, but we don't want to. We want to keep that money for ourselves. So, we will pay you only what you could get somewhere else, thus keeping your incentive to leave nice and low while saving money.

    • Keep aside that Trump is asking. This is not a US-only problem, it's a worlwide issue. Reporting every 3 months apart from taking large resources and slow down of decision making, the worst issue is that companies want to always show quarter-on-quarter increases in profits - and that's killer. Results in twisting facts, layoffs, selling assets etc, just to keep showing higher numbers. It is like saying are we getting closer to our destination every 15 minutes while driving from the east coast to west coast

  • Quarterly reports serve small investors better (Score:4, Insightful)

    by OrangeTide ( 124937 ) on Monday September 15, 2025 @03:30PM (#65661538) Homepage Journal

    But if you are a billionaire you don't really care about the regular reports of publicly traded companies. Because you can already get information outside of the quarterly cycle.

    These sorts of changes will slam the middle class and drain away their 401K retirement. But that's always been part of his plan.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DarkOx ( 621550 )

      Without commenting on if moving a to a semiannual cycle is good or bad you're telling me corporate boards, and the C-suites are not going to take the calls of funds managers at big institutional investors but are going to pick up the phone because Zuck/Besos/Gates/Musk is on the line...

      I don't buy it.

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward

        .... the C-suites are not going to take the calls of funds managers at big institutional investors but are going to pick up the phone because Zuck/Besos/Gates/Musk is on the line...

        I don't buy it.

        You apparently don't understand how corporate cock sucking works.

    • Can you explain further? How exactly does that work?
  • We all know that there is no legitimate reason to do this. So, it's get rid of the postman because of bad news.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      We all know that there is no legitimate reason to do this.

      This is how it works in all EU member states. Even the UK still does.

      You also forgot to explain why you think there is no legitimate reason.
      Why exactly is aligning the US stock exchange with the rest of the planet not legitimate?

      Weren't you just arguing we should be using the metric system? While now saying there is no legitimate reason to do so, but not saying the reason?

    • It also unfairly biases towards the large investors. They are more likely to get insider information and also more likely to be able to absorb temporary losses.

    • I am firmly in the quarterly reporting camp, but there are valid reasons for considering semi-annual reporting. Most importantly you have a smoothing effect without potential quarterly volatility which does help with prioritizing long-term objectives. It also reduces share price volatility which is good for long-term investment focus rather than day trading.

      The problem is that you end up with a huge disconnect between the company/executives and shareholders.

      Compare average annual returns between EU/UK and

      • Interesting. I can certainly see the argument around volitily, and other people above have referenced how a large company will gear a lot of it's activity around the reporting cycles - slow these down a bit, and you slow down this disruption from getting real business done.

        I'm not sure I understand your second comment, about the relationship between managers and shareholders and the difference between European and US markets. Can you expand on this a bit please?

        • The stock market needs a level of [short term] price volatility-- it juices the wheels. In the US, more money flows into the markets because of this volatility, which helps build the capital markets and make money available for both startups and growth. European markets tend to have a bit less volatility, and that seems to reduce long term gains. I haven't studied it extensively, but from a mile-high view that is my perception.

          • Cool, thanks for explaining. It's always good to get someone else's view on things.

            For what it's worth, I'm very aware that the European financial markets as a whole seem to do a poor job at directing capital to startups and fast growing businesses, compared to the US. I've never been able to get any good information on this to form an opinion as to why.

  • 1970 (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Tailhook ( 98486 )

    We've all seen the "WTF Happened in 1970/1/2?" meme. Now, no one can credibly claim that whatever that stuff means had anything at all to do with the inception of quarterly reporting around the same time. I can claim, however, that somehow, some way, the US economy did, in fact, function pretty well before Nixon's SEC mandated quarterly reporting. So, perhaps Trump's change isn't actually the end of the world and the dawn of the Forth Reich.

    • Sure I agree it's not some crazy proposal, hell maybe it's good but what's the counter to make the change which carries a nonzero cost to implement? We just have the claims of the President here. Has the business world been calling for this? Did he campaign on it?

      If this was in a package of reforms, say things we might consider encourage companies to actually manage their companies better I might be more convinced but this feels like action for actions sake.

      • Re:1970 (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Tailhook ( 98486 ) on Monday September 15, 2025 @04:10PM (#65661644)

        Has the business world been calling for this?

        I can't recall any business moguls jumping up and down about this. On the other hand, I haven't heard anyone screaming from the hills about the high costs of such a change either, and business never, ever fail to bitch about regulatory costs. So I have to discount your supposed concern.

        Did he campaign on it?

        That I can recall. Yes he did. He mentioned it on occasion in speeches, so this no surprise to me. Obviously it's not a big vote-getter of an issue, so he didn't walk around in a big red "MAKE CORPORATE REPORTING GREAT AGAIN" hat, but it was a point in the campaign.

        • Good thing I didn't say high costs, I just said nonzero to switch and your correct statement that they yell about high costs they haven't been complaining about this which makes sense, it's baked into every process of their business.

          To be fair what I can find is he floated it his first term and I guess asked the SEC to evaluate it. Like did they do that? Whats the evidence or this vibes? Do other nations do it this way?

          • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

            by Tailhook ( 98486 )

            Like did they do that? Whats the evidence or this vibes? Do other nations do it this way?

            If they did or didn't wouldn't matter to Trump in any meaningful way. Trump doesn't listen to technocrats until they make the mistake of opposing him. Trump also doesn't given a damn what other nations do or don't.

            That's leadership. You may hate him for it, but you can't deny it.

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by Pascoea ( 968200 )

              If they did or didn't wouldn't matter to Trump in any meaningful way. Trump doesn't listen to technocrats until they make the mistake of opposing him. Trump also doesn't given a damn what other nations do or don't.

              That's leadership. You may hate him for it, but you can't deny it.

              I don't think I'd call not listening to anyone, pretending we exist in a vacuum, and "knowing" that you're the smartest person in every room "leadership", but I guess we all have our opinions.

            • Not taking in information from outside the country is leadership in your mind? Ignorance is the only correct term for being oblivious to the outside. Especially when your nation and (non-existing) industry plans to make money exporting things. Without outside data, you will not know if you overproduce/underproduce, can expect to get paid on time or not at all etc.

              No, not being open to the situation in neighboring countries and/or the whole world is not "leadership", instead it is the stupidest thing any nat

              • I don't think you're talking about the same things. He didn't say anything about not taking in information, he said Trump didn't care how they do things. The internal processes and preferences of other nations don't define ours. Following what others do cannot be leadership.
            • That's probably for the best. Technocrats have not done a good job anywhere ever that I have found. I have found that governments that bring in a bunch of technocrats to run things tend to fail rather violently. South America had some good examples of that, though my memory is a little fuzzy in the morning.
      • What change has the nonzero cost? As best I can tell, this change would save reporting companies considerable time and money, at no cost to the Federal government. It's still morning for me and I'm not following your point.

    • We've all seen the "WTF Happened in 1970/1/2?" meme.

      So what happened? On the first day Unix created time, and on the second day Unix created... files??? Or did Unix first took a rest, then created time on the second day ex post facto?

      • The first bug was found September 9, 1947 3:45pm (presumably Eastern Daylight Time?).
        That works out to a Unix timestamp of -704088900
        So we can fully support describing history before Unix, despite Unix being religiously observed as the beginning of computing history.

    • Ask yourself this question. Who do you think benefits most from this change?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DarkOx ( 621550 )

      On the flip side financial reporting should be a far less of burden today in the era of fully electronic accounting and enterprise resource planning, then it was in the 70s.

      Considering the distribution of reports is also mostly digital where are these savings coming from?

      I am hardly the last person to defend Trump or his administration around here but 'savings' does not seem to be the story here. I don't really have an opinion on this call as if it is right or wrong. I can see some arguments being made a l

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by alcmena ( 312085 )

        I was thinking the same thing. I doubt there's a lot of real money that anyone can call savings due to a change like this, but I also think that a longer window between reporting might increase longer term thinking. If that were to happen, I would call it a net positive.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by skam240 ( 789197 )

        I cant speak for the broader market but for operations with large amounts of physical inventory the counting of everything is a bit burdensome. Everything has to be counted for one of these reports.

        That's not to say I think this is a good idea though.

        • If they don't know what their inventory is then they're doing it wrong.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by skam240 ( 789197 )

            I take it you've never had to manage large stocks of physical inventory then. Running inventories never stay perfect for long. Things get broken and don't get reported, things dont get properly checked in or checked out, and then there's theft which needs to be checked for. Regardless of legal requirements if they aren't running an inventory periodically they're doing it wrong.

            • "Regardless of legal requirements if they aren't running an inventory periodically they're doing it wrong."

              Weird that you wrote that other stuff and then agreed with me in conclusion.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by skam240 ( 789197 )

                Weird that's what you read into that statement.

                • Weird that's what you read into that statement.

                  What happened was I read and understood the statement. Weird that you wrote it and didn't.

                  • Re: (Score:2)

                    by skam240 ( 789197 )

                    Oh, you're completely correct. Good work sussing out all that additional stuff you glossed over was just there to confuse you.

      • They still have to do the same amount of counting, and they still have to have the same number of lawyer-hours making sure they counted everything they're required to.

        The releasing of the report itself isn't where the cost comes from. It's whatever claims the company chooses to make, or exclude.

        Having a larger window could even increase the cost, because you have more uncertainty and so have to disclose more possible scenarios to investors.

        • What? No, there would obviously be less counting and fewer hours spent. Perhaps not the 50% reduction a naive analysis might suggest, but certainly less.

          And no, releasing a report isn't expensive. That's the cheap part. You print copies and mail them out. The expensive and time-consuming part is gathering, collating, and reviewing all the relevant data then assembling it into a report.

      • Have you ever had to produce quarterly reports on anything? Did you feel like you were doing something valuable, or wasting time?

    • Average investors in 1969 recieved stock prices via the newspaper the following day; the market had very little transparency and investors were completely reliant on brokers for knowledge and trading.

  • Sounds like a FASB problem (Score:5, Interesting)

    by smoot123 ( 1027084 ) on Monday September 15, 2025 @03:57PM (#65661612)

    We have an organization which sets standards for accounting. the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). They set the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP).

    I'm sure they're not perfect but I trust them way more than I trust Trump (a felon convicted of accounting fraud, lest we forget).

  • UK and EU report biannually already (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Koreantoast ( 527520 ) on Monday September 15, 2025 @04:06PM (#65661634)
    As the article pointed out, the UK and the European Union already changed their regulations for reporting to be on a biannual basis. So the move would actually bring the United States in closer alignment with Europe.
  • Apparently reporting every 3 months makes it harder to fake the financials?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by TWX ( 665546 )

      My supposition is that it would make it harder to hide when the cash-flow has exceeded the revenue and reserves. It would allow insolvent firms to remain operating for longer because it's harder to verify that they're out-of-whack. Entities they do business with that might well end up being creditors in a bankruptcy would possibly be deeper-in with failing firms because it wouldn't be so obvious that partners need to pull back against a firm that might not be able to make net-90 terms.

      • For a whole three months?

        It sounds like you're searching for something to call nefarious and not finding it. Almost as if your knee-jerk reaction was to assume nefarious intent, and now you're trying desperately to find it. But, you haven't.

  • All part of his statistics are bad campaign...

  • Everyone who remembers it is clearly dead.

  • Transparency (Score:5, Insightful)

    by PCM2 ( 4486 ) on Monday September 15, 2025 @04:16PM (#65661678) Homepage

    One reason for quarterly reporting is that it gives greater transparency and insight into how a business actually works. Many businesses are seasonal. Most obviously, virtually all retail has its best quarter at the end of the calendar year. But many other types of businesses have key cycles each year that are tied to, for example, the buying habits of their largest customers. Suppliers matter, too; if farms have a bad quarter due to weather or other factors, for example, you're going to want to watch how that impacts food producers somewhere down the line.

    • But what's the cost/benefit ratio on that? That reporting is expensive and time consuming for the business, and has the side effect of encouraging very short-term thinking. How much transparency will be lost vs. how much time and money will be saved?
  • What better time to put the blinders on everyone and add artificial delays to reporting the bad news... than when the wheels are falling off?

  • Bad idea (Score:3)

    by usedtobestine ( 7476084 ) on Monday September 15, 2025 @04:54PM (#65661802)

    The better idea would be to make it weekly for companies larger than $x in revenue, and it must be automated. Any revision required after 8 weeks would incur an automatic penalty as a percentage of the absolute value of the adjustment.

  • Monthly (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Big Bipper ( 1120937 ) on Monday September 15, 2025 @05:04PM (#65661830)
    Internally all businesses report monthly, except a few that have 13, 4 week periods in a year. It's how their accounting software works. The only difference between what they do monthly ( which could simply be posted on their web sites ) and the quarterly dog and pony shows they put on is that quarterly, management has to get up on stage and explain why they did or didn't make targets this quarter. I'ld be perfectly happy to have only one or two dog and pony shows per year if their GL showed up on their web sites no more than 2 weeks after the month-end.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by radicimo ( 33693 )

      Sensible, less frequently but more immediate. Sure, make reporting semiannual, but give them maximum 30 days for an interim report and 45 for the annual. I believe it is now 45 and 75. Two weeks seems a bit onerous on smaller companies with limited financial organizations.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kubajz ( 964091 )

      Yes, most of the numbers companies report are available automatically from the accounting software, at least monthly if not more real-time. However, financial statements contain items that aim to give a more relevant picture but are subject to judgment. Examples include likely losses from ongoing court cases, estimates of bad debts, degree of completion for ongoing projects (and therefore items not yet invoiced but already happening) or an updated list of substantial risks. So yes, internal reporting does h

  • ...wacky ideas, so if it keeps his orange nose out of pressing issues, I deem it good.

  • I hate this idea (Score:3)

    by Aighearach ( 97333 ) on Tuesday September 16, 2025 @02:14AM (#65662584)

    As a retail investor I hate this because it just makes research more difficult when you make a change like this. So for apples to apples comparisons, in the future you bundle two quarters together and pretend they were a single reporting period? That would be fine if companies didn't already massage the numbers because of seasonality, but they do do that. So changing the seasonality afterwards lowers the quality of the information.

    • They wouldn't be pretending anything, quarters wouldn't be the reporting period. I see no reason to assume there would be more or less "massaging" of the numbers.

      • Quarters reported now will still be part of stock research later.

        In fact, the current data is mostly useless without the historical data for context.

        • Wait, is the problem you have that it will throw off your charts to have multiple reporting periods? I honestly don't recall. I realize this discussion wasn't that long ago, but I do lose track.

          • Yes, that's exactly it. It will fuck up my stock research.

            • I can understand your annoyance. How many periods do you think it will take for that to smooth out?

              • Well, currently I often look at all the available data.

                I guess whenever nobody invests in any companies that existed before the change, then it will no longer be fucking up any charts.

  • Cats & dogs, living together! Oh, no! People are going to be DYING en masse, like never seen before!... well... ok... like not seen since 1970 [eyeroll]

    Are we REALLY at a point where a president proposes an accounting change to a policy 90% of us will never notice that will return to a system that worked for many decades just 55 years ago deserves all sorts of bloviating about corruption and ulterior motives and conspiracies just because some people are just full of hate?

    The change from bi-annual to qua

    • You are confusing hate with disagreement again. Why don't you calm down dear? They cant shoot you here.

      I think hate has become the right's new "woke" .

      People disagree with you. Get over it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by spitzak ( 4019 )

      You seem incapable of reading comments before writing your fantasy about what they say.

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