US Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Paul Atkins pledged to pursue minimal regulation and fast-track President Donald Trump's proposal to scrap quarterly earnings reports in an opinion piece for the Financial Times on Monday.
"The government should provide the minimum effective dose of regulation needed to protect investors while allowing businesses to flourish," Atkins wrote, adding that changes should not be driven by political trends.
At present, the SEC requires listed companies to release financial statements every 90 days.
Trump previously backed the proposed change in 2018 and renewed his call earlier this month.
Atkins did not lay out a timeline for the change, which would be a major shift for companies in the US.
Some investors have cautioned that a move away from quarterly reporting would result in diminished transparency and increased market volatility, which would in turn make US stocks less attractive to investors.
Former US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers argued that the proposal was “a bad idea whose time should never come,” in a recent post, citing the fundamental pillars of “accountability and transparency” in American capital markets. He emphasized “frequent accountability and substantial sharing of information have been central to that.”
Staff reporter and Reuters
