President Donald Trump has called for an end to quarterly reporting for US-listed companies in what would be one of the biggest shake-ups to financial markets seen in years.
The US president said companies should “no longer be forced” to report results on a quarterly basis and instead report on a six month basis, emulating the rules used by the London Stock Exchange.
Trump said the change, which would be subject to “approval” by the US securities regulator, would “save money and allow managers to focus on properly running their companies”.
He hinted that American companies were adopting too short-termist an approach, and lauded the longer-term outlook of businesses in China.
Trump said in a post to Truth Social: “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!!!”
Public bodies under fire
The remarks add the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to a growing number of public bodies Trump has taken aim at, as he seeks to remould government institutions in his image.
The president has also repeatedly taken aim at Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell, calling him a “moron” and castigating him as “Jerome too late Powell” for being “too late” on interest rate cuts.
He has also called for Fed governor Lisa Cook to resign over claims of tax fraud over a mortgage application which have since been debunked, and has sought to build a majority of acolytes on the Fed board.
“What we have today is the very definition of the abuse of government power,” Peter Conti-Brown, associate professor of financial regulation at the University of Pennsylvania, told the FT’s Economics Show podcast.
“The Trump administration didn’t start with a crime and then investigate to ascertain the identity of the defendant. What they did was start with the defendant and then went searching for the crime.
“They started with Lisa Cook because they wanted to fire her because they want interest rates to be lower, and they have put together this bad faith allegation of a box that was checked one way that should have been checked another on a mortgage application from before her time on the Fed.”