The United States is contemplating changes to its quarterly reporting requirements for listed firms. The Long-Term Stock Exchange (LTSE) intends to petition the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to replace quarterly earnings reports with semi-annual ones. This would aim to cut costs, ease the administrative load of earnings calls, and allow company leaders to pursue long-term strategy over short-term objectives.<\/p>\n
The proposal responds to concerns about the burdens of public company obligations. There is historical interest in such changes, with former President Trump considering it in 2018, and current SEC leaders open to reducing regulatory requirements. LTSE representatives have had discussions with SEC officials and are hopeful about their feedback.<\/p>\n
The proposed changes would impact all U.S. listed companies, possibly reversing the trend of declining public listings. The number of publicly traded U.S. firms has decreased from its 1997 peak to around 3,700 as of June, with many choosing to stay private or sell. While there has been an uptick in initial public offerings recently, activity remains low by historical standards, with big private companies like SpaceX and Databricks still seeking private funding.<\/p>\n
Founded in 2020, the San Francisco-based LTSE focuses on long-term value creation principles. Listed firms must commit to sustained investment, stakeholder engagement, and governance aligned with long-term objectives. Advocating for structural changes, such as semi-annual reporting, LTSE argues this could lessen short-term market pressures and enhance the attractiveness of public listings.<\/p>\n
Given the discussions around ending quarterly reporting, we should prepare for a fundamental shift in market volatility patterns. The regular, predictable spikes in implied volatility around earnings seasons could be replaced by a longer, six-month build-up of uncertainty. In the coming weeks, we should watch for unusual pricing in options contracts that expire in future traditional earnings months, like January and April 2026.<\/p>\n
This proposal is gaining traction because the number of U.S. listed companies has remained stubbornly low, hovering just under 4,000 as of August 2025, a stark contrast to the nearly 8,000 in 1997. This stagnation supports the argument that the regulatory burden is a key factor, making any potential change highly impactful for market structure. Therefore, this isn’t a minor tweak; it’s a potential rewrite of the information flow that underpins our trading strategies.<\/p>\n
For us, this means re-evaluating strategies that rely heavily on short-term earnings announcements. The highly profitable trading of weekly options to capture earnings-day moves could become half as frequent. We should begin modeling how options pricing will adapt to a semi-annual cycle, which will likely place a higher premium on longer-dated contracts.<\/p>\n
We remember similar talk back in 2018 that didn’t materialize, but the current regulatory environment seems more favorable to the idea. A major change like this could flatten the VIX index for long periods, punctuated by much larger, more violent moves twice a year. Historically, periods of less frequent official information have led to markets overreacting to rumors and minor news events.<\/p>\n
In the immediate term, we should anticipate greater market sensitivity to alternative data sources and guidance updates between the official reports. Sectors that are data-heavy and less reliant on earnings calls, like commodities, may be less affected than growth-oriented tech stocks where guidance is critical. This potential information vacuum creates an opportunity for those who can better analyze non-traditional indicators to anticipate market sentiment.<\/p>\n
Create your live VT Markets account<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0start trading<\/a>\u00a0now. <\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" LTSE urges SEC to adopt semi-annual reporting, aiming to reduce burdens and support long-term strategies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":17027,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-live-updates"],"acf":{"acf_article_selection_author":null},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}