President Donald Trump’s push to abolish quarterly corporate earnings disclosures is receiving firm backing from his Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, who argues the move would reduce market turmoil and strengthen long-term growth.
Bessent, a former hedge fund manager, called the proposal a win for investors”because it would limit the stock-price swings that accompany quarterly releases.
“President Trump realizes that whether it’s the U.K., [or] it is the U.S., our public markets are atrophying, and this might be one way to bring back and cut costs for public companies without harming investors,” the Treasury Secretary told CNBC in London Tuesday.
Trump has long railed against the practice, claiming it forces executives into short-term thinking at the expense of innovation and expansion. He has pointed to European models of annual reporting as a preferable standard, arguing that U.S. companies should not be locked into a cycle of chasing three-month benchmarks.
Bessent reinforced that message, describing quarterly filings as noise that distracts from the broader performance of the economy. In his view, shifting to annual reports would bring U.S. rules in line with international practice and create a steadier environment for capital allocation.
The idea is far from new, explained CBS News. Academic and business experts have suggested such a change in years past, for similar reasons as those cited by the president. During his first term, Trump had asked the SEC to examine the three- versus six-month reporting requirement, although no change was made.
Any change would fall to the Securities and Exchange Commission, where institutional investors who rely on quarterly data are expected to resist. For now, the policy remains under review. But its advancement underscores the Trump administration’s broader campaign to cut regulation and reshape the rules of corporate governance in the United States.
