Companies in the United Kingdom do it, as do many in the European Union.
But Northeastern University accounting professor Kelvin Liu says there is no clear answer as to whether the United States should allow companies to report their finances every six months as opposed to quarterly.
"As an investor myself, I would prefer more information and information sooner," says Liu, an associate professor of accounting at Northeastern who researches earnings management, management accounting and corporate governance. "But at the same time, I understand the cost is not entirely borne by me, it's borne by the companies."
President Donald Trump said last month on Truth Social, his social media site, that publicly traded companies should report their finances semi-annually as opposed to quarterly. He said the change, which he had also called for in 2018, would "save money, and allow managers to focus on properly running their companies."
"Did you ever hear the statement that, 'China has a 50 to 100 year view on management of a company, whereas we run our companies on a quarterly basis???' Not good!!!" Trump added.
Liu agreed with many of the president's points, although he noted that public firms in China are mandated to file quarterly reports.
Companies certainly incur costs filing quarterly reports both in terms of employees -- from the accountants who provide the financial statements and financial reports to the lawyers who review the filing before they are made public -- and the fees from the filing itself, Liu says.
Filing also costs the government -- specifically the Securities and Exchange Commission, whose employees periodically review the documents, Liu adds.
Liu also notes that less frequent reporting might also reduce "managerial myopia," where firms sacrifice the long-term growth of the company for short-term performance.
"Especially when the firms are under greater performance pressure from the market, moving from the quarterly report to the semi-annual reports to some extent can mitigate the managerial myopia," Liu says.
But individual investors likely lose out, Liu says, resulting in "information asymmetry," or where one party has more or better information than another.
"When you have more frequent reporting like quarterly reporting, you will have more transparent information," Liu says. "Also the financial analysts who tend to follow firms, they will provide a better analysis forecast, meaning it will be more accurate and there will be less dispersion among the analysts regarding the future earnings potential for a given firm."
And it's not just existing American companies that have to be considered.
"It could create a concern that with decreased transparency, we will lose some of the attractiveness to the foreign companies who want to come to the U.S. to be listed here," Liu says.
On the other hand, could decreased filing costs inspire smaller private companies to go public amid a slump in IPOs?
"I'm conjecturing that the smaller companies will be more willing to go public because there's a lower cost for them to get into the public market," Liu says.
So, how do you know if the pros outweigh the cons?
That's partly the SEC's job.
The agency will conduct a cost-benefit analysis of the proposed rule change, solicit public comment and eventually decide whether to take the president's advice.
"This is a multifaceted problem," Liu says. "I think you need to look at it from different angles."