Washington wants to let every public company stop reporting its results each quarter and disclose just twice a year. We tried this once, between 1955 and 1970. Less transparency came with lower returns and lower valuations. For an ordinary investor, a return to those days could mean losing a third, or even half, of your life savings.
The SEC is taking public comments on this proposed rule, but time is running out.
A 160-year head start
For most of U.S. financial history, the direction of travel was clear: more disclosure, more often. Companies volunteered quarterly numbers decades before any regulator required them. There is exactly one modern detour, and it is the natural experiment we can learn from.
“The trading markets should have the benefit of quarterly financial information.”SEC Release No. 34-8683 · Sept. 15, 1969
The semi-annual experiment · 1955–1970
During America’s only modern stretch of twice-a-year reporting, real stock returns went nowhere and valuations sat far below today’s. In the half-century of quarterly reporting that followed, the market compounded steadily higher, year after year. Correlation isn’t destiny, but it is a warning written in the record.
Why does P/E matter? A stock’s price is the company’s earnings multiplied by its P/E Ratio. If you’re invested in the market, a P/E drop of 50% erases half of your savings.
The transparency premium is global
It isn’t just American history. Look across the world today. The markets that demand quarterly numbers command the richest valuations. The markets that settle for twice a year sit at a discount, right alongside where America sat during its own semi-annual era.
Current ratios as of Q2 2026
Valuations reflect many factors, not just reporting frequency. But the thread runs the same way across seven decades of U.S. history and across every major market today, and the burden is on anyone who wants to dim the lights to prove that this time is different.
Run the numbers on your own money
Enter your stake in the U.S. market, today valued at about 26.7× earnings. Then pick a semi-annual market and watch what a re-rating to its valuation would do to your hard-earned savings.
Information is the lifeblood
“I like getting the figures quarterly, and I hope that stays.”
Buffett has objected to quarterly earnings guidance, the short-term profit forecasts he calls a harmful game, not to quarterly reporting itself. On the actual figures, his position is simple: keep them coming four times a year.
Accurate and timely information is the lifeblood of financial markets.
It enhances investor decision-making, increases market efficiency, and lowers the cost of capital.
Reducing the frequency of reporting risks curtailing investment.
What else
Bad news gets up to six months to build before you ever see it. When the truth finally lands, the surprise and the sell-off can be far sharper than it would have been with a quarterly heads-up.
Executives and big institutions don’t wait for filings. They have other channels. Longer gaps between public reports widen the gap between what insiders know and what you know.
European companies that moved to semi-annual reporting saw their trading liquidity dry up, while quarterly reporters held steady. Thinner markets mean worse prices for ordinary sellers.
Decades of research find that more frequent reporting lowers a company’s cost of capital, which supports higher share prices. Cut the reporting, and you push the gears the other way.
The U.S. reported quarterly while winning wars, landing on the moon, and building the most valuable stock market on Earth. The corporate “myopia” blamed on quarterly reporting is, in the words of one finance scholar, simply not supported by the evidence. If it isn’t broken, don’t break it.
The window closes July 6, 2026
By law, the SEC must read and weigh public comments before it can finalize this rule. A few minutes of your time is real leverage. Tell them to keep quarterly reporting, and keep the lights on for the people whose savings are riding on the truth.
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