Financial Planning Tip July 2026

July 2026

The SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) is considering whether public companies should be allowed to file formal financial reports every six months instead of every quarter.[1] This would not eliminate annual reports, and many companies may continue to provide quarterly updates. Still, the change could reduce the amount of timely information available to investors and to advisors like us. We use public filings as part of our monitoring process, and we believe clients should understand how this proposal may affect the information environment around public-company investments.

There are two sides to this argument. Having to report only twice a year could relieve companies of the costly and repetitive exercise of preparing reports every quarter. On the other hand, investors might have less timely information on which to base their decisions and that could add a risk factor to companies who choose less frequent reporting.

We are sharing this because we believe some of you may have an opinion on this and may want to share it with your government. Anyone can send a comment about this to the SEC. We believe comments from individual investors are particularly helpful. A useful comment can simply explain how less-frequent reporting would affect you as an investor. To comment by email, send your message to rule-comment@sec.gov and put File Number S7-2026-15 in the subject line. Please do not include private personal information in the message because submitted comments may become public. The deadline for public comments is July 6.

[1] https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2026-42-sec-proposes-amendments-permit-optional-semiannual-reporting-public-companies