Trump wants to abolish quarterly earnings reports in favor of biannual. Here's what that would mean.

President Trump says he wants to ditch a staple of U.S. financial markets: quarterly earnings reports.

If Mr. Trump's push is successful, the change would eliminate a requirement that's been in place for 55 years, with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, mandating quarterly reports since 1970 .

Instead, the president said he wants to replace quarterly reporting with a new SEC rule requiring that companies disclose their financial data every six months. Providing companies with a longer ramp for issuing their reports would "save money, and allow managers to focus on properly running their companies," Mr. Trump wrote on Monday in his social media post.

"Did you ever hear the statement that, 'China has a 50 to 100 year view on management of a company, whereas we run o