By Corrie Driebusch and Caitlin Ostroff

The Securities and Exchange Commission asked the public what it thought about its proposal to no longer require public companies to report quarterly financial results.

More than 200,000 comments -- overwhelmingly negative -- rolled in.

It is the most feedback the SEC has ever received on a proposal, people familiar with the matter said, and the SEC is still working to get it all posted on the agency's website.

The proposed rule change, unveiled by SEC Chairman Paul Atkins in May, would give public companies the option to disclose their financial results twice a year, rather than on a quarterly basis. President Trump has long been a proponent of the idea.

At least 20,000 of the comments used language that echoed an anonymous grassroots campaign focused on keeping quarterly reporting. Another 40,000 or so said the proposal "prevents investors like me from accessing information about companies; lets companies hide behind closed doors; and allows fraud to fester."

Despite the pushback, people familiar with the matter said the SEC is likely to move forward with the proposal in some form. The next step for the agency is to sift through the many comments, which could lead to changes in the rule's language.

The comments came from a wide-ranging audience, including nonprofits, retirement funds, academics and companies such as Exxon Mobil.

Lori Amann, who identified herself as a public-school teacher, wrote about how she is expected to report grades every quarter so parents can track their children's progress.

"If you have school age children, based on your request to reduce the paperwork burden of US corporations, I can only conclude that you wouldn't mind if your child's teachers only reported out twice a year," Amann, who opposed the proposal, wrote.

A childhood-cancer nonprofit, the Little Warrior Foundation, wrote that it learned through a quarterly update that one of its potential suppliers had suffered a loss that could disrupt its ability to manufacture components used in an immunotherapy clinical trial it funded.

"Without this information, we would have misplaced donations, and wasted time that kids with cancer don't have," wrote Emily McFadden, co-founder of the nonprofit.

Among the few supportive letters were comments from Exxon Mobil and the insurance brokerage Gallagher, the latter of which recommended "triannual" reporting.

Exxon said it doesn't believe a move to semiannual reporting "would result in a reduction of material or timely information available to investors because material quarterly information is disclosed independently."

The campaign to allow companies to report earnings semiannually instead of quarterly gained steam last year. The Long-Term Stock Exchange petitioned the SEC to eliminate the quarterly earnings report requirement, The Wall Street Journal reported in September, and within days Trump said he supported the idea. It isn't the first time the president has said he would like to move to semiannual earnings reports. He briefly explored the idea during his first term.

Publicly listed European companies are no longer required to report quarterly financial results after a 2013 rule change. The U.K. ended quarterly reporting requirements about a decade ago, though many companies still report quarterly.

Many of the companies that report semiannually also give some update to investors on the off quarters, sometimes in the form of sales or revenue updates. Among the semiannual-reporting companies are Nestlé and the pharmaceutical company Roche Holding, according to FactSet.

Write to Corrie Driebusch at corrie.driebusch@wsj.com and Caitlin Ostroff at caitlin.ostroff@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 17, 2026 05:30 ET (09:30 GMT)