Praised as a Reform but Opposed by Many: Semiannual Corporate Reporting Would Change the Data Game

Should corporations be allowed to report earnings semiannually instead of quarterly? As part of Paul S. Atkins’ “Make IPOs Great Again” agenda, it would help “incentiviz[e] companies to go and stay public,” the Securities and Exchange Commission chairman said when introducing the proposal in May.

President Trump was for it. Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman hailed it as an antidote to short-termism. The Business Roundtable and U.S. Chamber of Commerce got behind it in weighty responses during the comment period that closed July 6.

But if the proposal goes forward, it will be against the grain of all but a small fraction of the more than 220,000 submitted comments. The “Shadow SEC,” a group of law school professors including Harvard’s John Coates and Columbia’s John C. Coffee Jr., called themselves “deeply skeptical” and argued, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

Former SEC enforcement attorney and sharp critic John Reed Stark viewed less disclosure as an attack on the SEC’s “organizing principle” and a letdown for all types of investors. He saw in the overwhelmingly negative feedback “the biggest public rebuke of a rulemaking in the...