When President Trump suggested moving from quarterly earnings reports to semiannual disclosures, critics howled. And my own initial reaction was guarded.

Investors warned of less transparency. Executives worried about confusing the markets. Commentators painted images of CEOs hiding bad news for half a year. Yet the simple question remains: Does the 90-day cycle make companies stronger, or does it just keep everyone chained to a stopwatch?

For decades, quarterly reports have been the American ritual. They arrive like the seasons, each one an exercise in parsing whether a company beat or missed “the number.” The frenzy sometimes feels less like investing and more like sports betting.

As a finance professor, I see how this short-term focus shapes behavior. Students analyze cases where firms delay projects or cut research just to hit the quarterly target. A former student now in corporate development admitted, “We spend as much time managing earnings expectations as we do managing the business.”

Other markets have tried to escape this treadmill. The European Union

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