Featured in the Financial Times:
From Sarva Srinivasan, Managing Director NeoXam Americas, New York, NY, US.
President Donald Trump’s call to shift US companies from quarterly to Semi-Annual Reporting misses a small but very important detail (Opinion, September 17).
Transparency underpins the entire financial system, not just listed companies and their investors. Quarterly disclosures are not simply about satisfying Wall Street’s appetite for numbers. They provide the timely, reliable data on which Asset Managers, Custodians, and Fund Administrators depend to calculate valuations, process dividends, and meet Regulatory obligations. Stretching that cadence to six months could create longer periods of uncertainty, forcing intermediaries to rely on estimates and assumptions.
That does not reduce costs overall; it simply shifts operational and risk burdens downstream, raising the potential for errors that could undermine market confidence. It is true that some European markets operate with semi-annual filings, but many companies there offset the gap with voluntary trading updates and interim statements. A similar framework would be essential if the US were to follow suit.
Transparency is not a bureaucratic burden. It is the foundation of trust in Capital Markets. Any reform must balance corporate efficiency with the wider need for timely, dependable information.
