(Reuters) -Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman on Monday advocated to provide public companies the option to report either quarterly or semi-annually, as the exchange operator reinforces its support for reforms to reduce reporting burden on publicly listed companies.
The comments come after U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday renewed calls for ending quarterly reports for companies, a move that would mark a major shift for corporate America if approved.
Trump’s idea, which revisits a similar call he made in 2018, is subject to the approval of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
“Thank you, President Trump for shining a light on a key challenge that leaders of public companies face: short-termism, exacerbated by quarterly reporting,” Friedman said in a post on LinkedIn.
Friedman said that minimizing friction, burden and costs associated with being a public company could further inject energy into the U.S. capital markets and spur economic growth.
Nasdaq has also previously publicly made the case for streamlining reporting requirements, suggesting giving companies the option to report semiannually instead of quarterly.
It had also suggested standardizing guidelines for the earnings press release to allow the document to replace the quarterly Form 10-Q entirely, according to its white paper.
Currently, Wall Street’s top regulator requires companies to report their financial statements every 90 days. Half-yearly reporting would put the U.S. in line with the UK and several other countries in the European Union.
Top Wall Street executives in the past have also called for reforms to ease public company regulations.
In 2018, top corporate bosses Jamie Dimon and Warren Buffett argued in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that short-termism was harming the U.S. economy.
U.S. exchange operators have also been in talks with the SEC on easing regulatory burdens for public companies from reducing the quantum of disclosures and the costs of going public, Reuters reported in June.
(Reporting by Arasu Kannagi Basil in Bengaluru; Editing by Alan Barona)
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