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Quarterly or Biannual Reporting? Weighing the Trade-Offs for Public Companies
Directors and officers are no strangers to consequential decisions—where to incorporate, how to pursue growth, how far to go on ESG disclosures. Each choice shapes the company’s relationship with investors.
Now, another decision may soon present itself: whether to continue with quarterly earnings reports or adopt a biannual cadence.
As with many governance debates, there is unlikely to be a one-size-fits-all answer. The real value may lie in having the choice at all.
Still, the discussion is not without controversy. Both quarterly and biannual reporting come with advantages and drawbacks. Understanding these trade-offs will be critical if the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) moves forward in changing the rules for US public companies.

Brief Background on the Proposed Policy Change
The SEC started requiring public companies to report quarterly earnings in 1970. From 1955 to 1970, the SEC only required semiannual reporting. Before that, the requirement was merely annual.
Companies have always been able to report more frequently than required, and indeed some chose to do so before quarterly reporting was mandated.
On September 9, 2025, the Long Term Stock Exchange1 (LTSE), a national exchange based in San Francisco, stated its intention to petition the SEC to allow for a semiannual earnings report, instead of quarterly.
Maliz Beams, CEO of LTSE, said, “As CEOs, we absolutely have to deliver on short-term metrics; both our customers and investors depend on it. But the key is including short-term targets as deliberate mile markers on the path to long-term value creation. This petition takes a critical step toward enabling genuinely long-term companies to focus on sustainable growth rather than quarterly noise.”
Less than a week after the LTSE announcement, the US president made a statement via social media in support of this concept, saying that companies should no longer be forced to report on a quarterly basis, but rather, it should be biannually.
He asserted that biannual reporting would reduce costs and “allow managers to focus on properly running their companies.”
SEC Chair Paul Atkins responded to the call, saying he would fast-track the president’s request and could have a proposal as soon as the end of 2025 or early 2026.
According to the Financial Times, Atkins stated the government “should provide the minimum effective dose of regulation needed to protect investors while allowing businesses to flourish,” in an opinion piece for the publication.
The LTSE went forward with filing its petition on September 30, 2025.
The concept of semiannual reporting has been gaining some momentum in recent times.
For example, the current president proposed the idea during his first term, and a September 2025 Nasdaq Policy Advocacy report recommended it as well.
So, what would a new reporting structure mean for companies, including potential benefits and liabilities? There are definitely some pros and cons worth unpacking.
The Case for Flexibility
For some companies, the real question is not whether quarterly reporting is possible, but whether it is practical—and this is where flexibility becomes essential.
Corporate America may ultimately benefit from adopting rules that are rooted in choice rather than strict mandates.
The argument is that allowing companies to take different approaches creates a natural environment to study and measure the outcomes.
That is, if every company is required to follow the same path, we lose the ability to evaluate whether that path is truly the most effective.
Having a choice is especially useful for certain companies—for example, early-stage life science companies or similar corporations where nothing has really happened in a quarter.
In these cases, the reports deliver little insight to investors and function largely as a revenue stream for service providers.
Quarterly calls can also consume a disproportionate amount of time and energy—a point made in this recent article at the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance.
Authors David Katz and Laura McIntosh from Wachtell Lipton point out that earnings calls are “high-stakes performances for CEOs and CFOs, as missteps can have immediate repercussions on their company’s stock price,” and that “for a minimum of two months each year, a significant amount of corporate time and energy is spent preparing and delivering earnings information to the market—time and energy that could be spent focusing on substantive priorities and executing on strategic goals.”
The authors also address the boogeyman of volatility: |
While a common objection to eliminating quarterly reporting is that it may increase market volatility, long-term market participants argue that viewing events over a longer time period tends to have the opposite effect, smoothing out bumps that would have an outsized impact if analyzed only within a short timeframe. |
For proponents of the change, providing the option of biannual reporting acknowledges that one size does not fit all.
Arguments for Maintaining Quarterly Reporting
While flexibility has its merits, there are also reasons why quarterly reporting has long been the norm in US markets, and why some investors and governance experts remain wary of moving away from it.
For companies that are growing—or shrinking—extremely fast, their businesses change so rapidly that biannual reporting may not be optimal and could lead to greater volatility than quarterly reporting.
Then there’s the thought that, while quarterly reporting can be expensive, it ultimately saves companies money by reducing their cost of capital. This argument was advanced in an article recently published in the Wall Street Journal, the assertion being that “investors are willing to pay more for a stock if they know more about what’s going on.”
That same article highlights other possible reasons semiannual reporting could be problematic, including reducing corporations’ accountability to shareholders.
As my friend Kevin LaCroix points out in an article in the D&O Diary, semiannual reporting could also open the door for more insider trading, “providing more opportunities for managers with insight into company performance to trade on their awareness of how the company is doing.” That risk can be mitigated of course, with companies properly utilizing 8-K filings to update the investment community for material events and changes.
For those against the changes to quarterly reporting, the overall argument is that quarterly reports are more than a mere compliance exercise; they reinforce transparency, accountability, and market confidence.
Discussion and Takeaways
Will new policies on earnings reports have a meaningful impact if the SEC moves forward with the proposed changes? If we are lucky, we will get to find out.
If the US experience mirrors that of the UK, which eliminated mandatory quarterly reporting in 2014, we already have some evidence to help anticipate the outcome.
One study found that “the frequency of financial reports had no material impact on levels of corporate investment.”
However, “mandatory quarterly reporting was associated with an increase in analyst coverage and an improvement in the accuracy of analyst earnings forecasts.”
The study also found that in the year after the reporting mandate was lifted, less than 10% stopped issuing quarterly reports, and, as outlined in the Harvard article linked earlier, some large multinationals continued quarterly reporting to satisfy investor demand.
Even if the rules are not finalized yet, it is worth thinking about how your company might approach the choice if and when it arrives.
Here are some considerations:
- Company-specific factors. Not every business looks the same through a quarterly lens. For companies in fast-moving sectors, quarterly updates may be a non-negotiable to keep stakeholders aligned.
- The investor base. Institutional investors, for example, often expect a regular stream of information and may still prefer quarterly reports even if the rules no longer require it.
- Transparency. Reporting frequency may demonstrate a company’s commitment to transparency. Leadership should be mindful of the message their choice sends.
- D&O insurance considerations. On the one hand, longer reporting gaps could increase litigation risk. On the other hand, less reporting—and especially fewer earnings calls—could mean that the plaintiffs' bar has less to pick at when bringing more marginal claims against issuers. Insurers are likely to study the issue carefully. Neither an immediate discount nor a surcharge for insurance is likely to be on the table in the early days of biannual reporting.
The quarterly versus biannual reporting mandate is about recognizing that different companies and their shareholders may benefit from different approaches.
Ultimately, the question is more about ensuring that whichever cadence a company chooses, the choice reflects sound judgment, transparency, and alignment with investor needs.
1Full disclosure: I serve on the board of LTSE.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this publication are solely those of the author; they do not necessarily reflect the views of AJG. Further, the information contained herein is offered as general industry guidance regarding current market risks, available coverages, and provisions of current federal and state laws and regulations. It is intended for informational and discussion purposes only. This publication is not intended to offer financial, tax, legal or client-specific insurance or risk management advice. No attorney-client or broker-client relationship is or may be created by your receipt or use of this material or the information contained herein. We are not obligated to provide updates on the information contained herein, and we shall have no liability to you arising out of this publication. Woodruff Sawyer, a Gallagher Company, CA Lic. #0329598
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