Trump Wants Ford, Corporate America To Shed Quarterly Earnings Reports

Publicly traded companies like Ford have long provided required quarterly earnings reports, which are designed to provide insights into how those companies are doing, financially speaking, as well as what future plans hold. This is particularly useful for investors, who base their decisions to buy, sell, or recommend such actions to others, but quarterly financial reporting has long been questioned by some in the industry. Now, President Donald Trump is also among that group, calling for an end to quarterly earnings reports.

According to CNBC, a recent social media post from Trump suggests that he’s pushing for a switch to semi-annual earnings reports, though he noted that such a change would be “subject to SEC approval.” Trump said that the move would “save money, and allow managers to focus on properly running their companies,” however. “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!!!’” Trump added.

The President isn’t the first person to question the need for quarterly financial reporting, however. “In our experience, quarterly earnings guidance often leads to an unhealthy focus on short-term profits at the expense of long-term strategy, growth, and sustainability,” Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett and JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon wrote in a 2018 op-ed for The Wall Street Journal. Such a move would mimic what’s already in place in the UK and Europe, though proponents say that quarterly reports provide investors with transparency regarding public companies and more timely information.

For Ford, we learn quite a lot about the automaker’s financials and strategy with each passing quarter. For example, The Blue Oval’s Q2 2025 earnings report revealed just how much tariffs impacted the automaker’s bottom line, and concerns pertaining to earnings in the same period impacted its stock in a negative way, too.