A recent survey of 2,000 U.S. investors, conducted on June 26 by The Motley Fool, indicates broad unfamiliarity among retail investors with a Securities and Exchange Commission proposal that would allow companies to replace quarterly financial reports with semiannual disclosures.
According to the poll, 44% of respondents said they had never heard of the proposal, while only 18% reported that they had heard a lot about it. Notably, even among investors who regularly follow quarterly earnings reports - a group most directly affected by changes to reporting frequency - 34% said they were unaware of the SEC initiative.
The SEC opened a public comment period after proposing in May that U.S.-listed companies be permitted to prepare earnings reports twice a year rather than every quarter. That shift would overturn a 55-year-old rule that requires public companies to disclose detailed quarterly financial results, replacing quarterly reporting with a semiannual cadence.
Support for the proposal comes from some stock exchanges and several large companies, including JPMorgan Chase, which argue that quarterly reporting creates substantial costs and can encourage short-term decision-making by corporate managers. Opponents, primarily investors, argue that less frequent reporting could lower market transparency and make it harder to monitor company performance.
The Motley Fool survey was released with only hours to go before the SEC's July 6 deadline for public comments on the rule change, and it offers a snapshot of retail sentiment at a particularly active moment in the rule-making process.
Survey responses reveal generational differences in awareness: nearly two-thirds of baby boomer investors said they had never heard of the proposal, while just 19% of Gen Z respondents reported the same. By that measure, 81% of younger investors had at least some awareness of the proposal.
Views on how the proposal would affect corporate disclosure also leaned negative among respondents. Thirty-five percent said the switch to semiannual reporting would reduce their confidence in companies' financial transparency, while 24% said it would increase their confidence.
Among those opposed to the proposal, concerns were explicit: 49% said reporting every six months rather than every quarter would make it easier for companies to conceal financial problems, and 60% characterized a six-month interval between financial updates as too long.
The survey findings suggest two concurrent dynamics. First, overall public awareness of the SEC proposal is limited, even among active earnings readers. Second, among investors who have formed an opinion, a substantial share believe the proposed change would weaken transparency and undermine confidence in company disclosures.
With the comment period closing on July 6, the SEC will need to weigh these responses alongside input from exchanges, companies and other market participants as it considers whether to revise the longstanding quarterly reporting requirement.