Today, the SEC published a request for comment on the nature, content, and timing of earnings releases and quarterly reports made by reporting companies, with an eye towards reducing the burden on public companies while at the same time enhancing the value of the disclosures to investors. Areas they seek to address include:
- The nature and timing of disclosures that reporting companies must provide in their quarterly Form 10-Q reports, including when the Form 10-Q disclosure requirements overlap with the disclosures such companies voluntarily provide to the public in earnings releases furnished on Form 8-K.
- How the Commission can promote efficiency in periodic reporting by reducing unnecessary duplication in the information that reporting companies disclose and how any such changes could affect capital formation, while enhancing, or at a minimum maintaining, appropriate investor protection.
- Whether Commission rules should allow reporting companies, or certain classes of reporting companies, flexibility as to the frequency of their periodic reporting.
- How the existing periodic reporting system, earnings releases, and earnings guidance (either standing alone or in combination with other factors) may affect corporate decision making and strategic thinking, including whether these factors foster an inefficient outlook among reporting companies and market participants by focusing on short-term results.
The request is out for a 90 day public comment period which ends on March 21, 2019.
Read the release: https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2018-287
