Trump’s Bold Strategy To Improve Businesses

President Trump has floated a new business idea to improve the overall economy. Breitbart reports:

President Donald Trump said Friday that he has asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to study the idea of ending quarterly reporting requirements for publicly traded companies, saying “top business leaders” had told him it would boost business and create jobs.

In a tweet dispatched Friday morning, Trump said he had spoken to “some of the world’s top business leaders” about making business and jobs “even better” in the U.S. and they had advocated an end to quarterly reporting.

In speaking with some of the world’s top business leaders I asked what it is that would make business (jobs) even better in the U.S. “Stop quarterly reporting & go to a six month system,” said one. That would allow greater flexibility & save money. I have asked the SEC to study!

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— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 17, 2018

This summer the U.S. House of Representatives passed the JOBS and Investor Confidence Act of 2018 (S. 488), also known as the JOBS Act 3.0, with bipartisan support. One provision of the bill includes a requirement that the SEC review the quarterly reporting requirement.

Critics of quarterly reporting say they encourage companies to excessively focus on short-term results rather than the long-term performance of public companies. Putting together quarterly reports is also a huge cost for public companies, requiring resources to be directed at reporting rather than producing goods and services for the market.

This would remove more regulatory burdens on businesses, but Democrats are likely to oppose it.