Public companies have reported their financial results every three months for over half a century. A new SEC proposal would let them go dark for six months at a time — while the executives, lawyers, and big institutional investors still know exactly how the business is doing. You'd be the last to find out.
A lot can go wrong in half a year. Failed product launches, ballooning debt, lawsuits, vanishing customers. Today the law forces companies to surface that information every quarter. Under the new rule, they can sit on it for six months at a stretch — long after your buy or sell decision is already made.
Executives don't wait for filings — they watch the numbers in real time. Quarterly reports force that information into the open on a schedule. Stretch the schedule and you create a long "dark period" where the people on the inside have a confirmed advantage over everyone trading on the public side of the market.
Markets work because fresh information flows in steadily. Cut that flow in half and prices wander between updates — then snap violently when the semi-annual report finally drops. More volatility, bigger surprises, worse retirement-account swings. The pros have tools to weather that. You don't.
The SEC says it's just giving companies "flexibility." But the companies most likely to opt in are precisely the ones whose investors most need frequent updates: smaller, more volatile, less-followed names. The flexibility lands hardest on the people with the least protection to begin with.
Companies still have to keep their books. They still have to brief their boards. The actual savings from skipping a public filing are modest legal and accounting fees — and those savings flow to the company and its executives. The cost of worse information falls on you, the person whose 401(k), IRA, or college fund holds the stock. That's a bad trade for ordinary investors even if it's a fine trade for corporate insiders.
Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.
You'll go directly to the official comment page for proposal S7-2026-15 on sec.gov. No login. No account. No hoops.
A few honest sentences from a real investor carry more weight than a copy-pasted form letter. Tell them you oppose the proposal and why it matters to you.
Your comment becomes part of the official record. The SEC is legally required to consider it before finalizing any rule.
Right now, on this rule, individual investors have an actual seat at the table. Take it.
Submit Your Comment to the SEC →Yes. Federal agencies like the SEC are legally required to consider comments from the public, and courts have overturned final rules when agencies failed to engage with substantive comments. Comments from real individual investors — describing real impact on real retirement accounts — directly answer the SEC's statutory mandate to protect "the investing public."
That's the SEC's argument. But the actual compliance savings are modest, and the cost — worse information flowing to ordinary investors — is borne by the people the SEC is supposed to protect. There are also other ways to reduce reporting burden that don't degrade transparency for retail investors.
No. Plain-English comments from ordinary investors are exactly what the SEC needs to hear. You don't need to cite securities law. Saying something like "I'm a retail investor and I rely on quarterly reports to make decisions about my retirement savings" is genuinely valuable on the record.
Write in your own words — that matters more than any specific argument. A few angles that work: (1) you rely on quarterly information to make decisions, (2) longer gaps create an unfair advantage for corporate insiders, (3) "optional" doesn't fix the problem because companies that opt in are often the ones whose investors most need frequent updates, (4) the savings to companies aren't worth the cost to you.
No. It's a proposal. The SEC opened a 60-day public comment period on May 5, 2026. After comments close, the Commission has to consider them and vote separately on whether to finalize the rule — a process that typically takes months. Right now is the window where public input matters most.