SEC Issues Concept Release about Quarterly Reporting

The SEC has issued a comment release soliciting input on many questions related to quarterly reporting. The release covers a lot of possible scenarios, any or none of which may occur. The format, as with many releases of this nature, has some limited analysis but is more dominated by questions as to which the public is invited to comment. As expected, there are some questions on whether quarterly reporting should be eliminated or changed to semi-annual, and if so, if this should only be for certain types of issuers (such as smaller reporting companies or emerging growth companies). Perhaps more interesting, there are a lot more questions and discussion of potential ways to combine quarterly earnings releases with Quarterly Reports on 10-Q, given their overlap and proximity in release/filing times. The thrust of many of the questions seems to be if there are ways to reduce redundancy without delaying the process.