The SEC is hoping to make quarterly earnings reports a little less … well, quarterly.

Comments are due Monday on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s proposed rule changes to allow public companies to report financial results semiannually. The agency said it could reduce short-termism, in which companies focus on near-term goals rather than long-term objectives. While it may be a worthy aim, the concept of less frequent reporting has struck a nerve in both the investment management industry and the general public. The SEC received roughly 37,000 submissions so far. In addition to pre-written campaign letters, there are also hundreds of individually drafted comments coming from asset managers, law firms, trade associations, academics, investor advocates and good-governance groups.

The irony is that what seems like a seismic shift may turn out to be a tempest in a teacup, according to Jason Moser, senior analyst at Motley Fool. “I honestly think most companies will appreciate the flexibility to do semiannual reporting, but the vast majority would still continue with quarterly reporting,” Moser told Advisor Upside. “It’s what Wall Street has come to expect, and it’s frankly not that burdensome on companies, especially now that AI can help you produce earnings reports at the click of a button.”

For and Against

Supporters of semiannual reporting argue that quarterly reports encourage an excessive focus on short-term earnings, while increasing compliance costs and even potentially discouraging companies from remaining public. Supporters likewise emphasize that the proposal is optional, not mandatory, and companies could continue filing quarterly reports if investors demand them. Writing in favor of the proposal, Commissioner Mark Uyeda emphasized that point, saying the framework should allow market participants to select the optimal reporting period for their business.

“Issuers will select a reporting period, and investors and market intermediaries will signal whether such period aligns with their expectations,” Uyeda said. There will still be robust reporting rules, he added:

• Companies will continue to communicate important information through means other than the quarterly Form 10-Q.
• They will also remain subject to requirements to file Form 8-K for certain material events.

Opponents, who include Moser and the Motley Fool, worry that Main Street investors could receive less timely information compared with institutional investors, who already possess alternative data sources. They also fear increased volatility between reporting periods and weaker corporate accountability. “Think about how much has happened in the first six months of 2026 with politics, tariffs and the war in Iran,” Moser said. “Nike just got a billion-dollar tariff refund, which we may not have known about.”

Will the SEC Heed? Nobody has a crystal ball, but Moser’s sense from conversations with other analysts and stakeholders like Better Markets, a consumer advocacy group focused on investment industry fairness and transparency, is that the SEC intends to implement the proposal “more or less as is.”

New ETF launches are getting meta.

Roundhill launched a new leveraged product last week that targets twice the daily performance of its own computer memory fund, the Roundhill Memory ETF (DRAM), which itself has become one of the most successful launches of all time. The new T-REX 2X Long DRAM Daily Target ETF (RAM) is one of the latest in the leveraged category, which has brought in hundreds of billions in assets since the start of the year and was, according to Morningstar, responsible for over 300 new product launches last year. But why so many new leveraged funds, and why now? The answer has several parts, one being that they tend to be more lucrative for issuers than investors, said Dan Sotiroff, associate director at Morningstar.

“On the one hand, you’ve got the clients that are gambling with this stuff, they want a quick hit and a quick win,” Sotiroff said. “On the other side, you have asset managers who are going to blast 50 or 60 of these out there all at once, betting that one or two of them become wildly successful. The success of those one or two more or less subsidizes the cost of doing the 50 or 60, and they’re justified in doing that from a business perspective, because they still make money at the end of the day.”

(Fund) Death and Decay

One major feature of leveraged funds is what’s referred to as volatility decay. Decay happens when the growth of an ETF eventually “destroys itself,” Sotiroff said. That’s because when returns are levered, volatility is too. Over time, that volatility eats into the performance of the ETF. “Almost all [leveraged funds] that I’ve seen, eventually what they do is they just asymptotically approach zero over time because of that phenomenon,” he said. “As you lever more and more, that actually accelerates that whole volatility decay phenomenon, so it actually occurs faster and quicker.”

Another thing to keep in mind with leveraged and inverse products is that often, they don’t actually own the underlying stock or the targeted stock. Instead, they use swap contracts. But there are increasing numbers of products that offer direct access to things like private assets, said David Shapiro, Co-Founder & CEO of OpenVC. “There are more and more [ETFs] coming online that actually do enable folks to get these assets without the leveraged context or like derivatized context,” he added.

Hit the Brakes. The SEC in December halted filings of highly leveraged funds, defined as those with more than 2x exposure to their underlying holdings. But some experts, like Joy Yang, global head of index product management at MarketVector Indexes, said it might make more sense to loosen regulations so US investors don’t seek out the products abroad. She told ETF Upside that regulators would be better off “keep[ing] investors where they can see them.”

Sotiroff agreed, adding that investors can’t just sign up for a traditional brokerage account and start day-trading in Germany or London. “Given the riskiness of that, I tend to think that’s probably actually a good thing,” he said.

The Declaration of Independence may have been one of history’s most bullish filings.

The US has already begun celebrating the nation’s 250th birthday with Revolutionary War reenactments, big deals at autolots and, of course, a fist fight on the White House lawn. But for advisors and clients, the anniversary is also a chance to reflect on why the US has been one of history’s strongest and most durable investment stories. For much of modern history, America has been the epicenter of global finance. Today, US equities account for roughly two-thirds of global stock market capitalization. While new challenges to growth may arise, America’s national spirit has been one of its most surprising superpowers, said Meb Faber, founder and CIO of Cambria Funds.

“It’s almost like there’s something in the water,” he said. “This country was largely founded by immigrants, risk-takers and people who got on the boat. There’s a freedom to take a risk and fail, and there’s nothing more American than failing.”

The Pursuit of Happiness

Much of America’s success stems from that willingness to embrace risk, he told Advisor Upside. An entrepreneurial culture distinguishes the US from much of Europe and Asia, where startup ecosystems tend to be less prominent. “There’s amazing entrepreneurs all over the world, but America has structures in place to enable it and also get out of its way,” said Faber, who documented America’s economic rise in a new book premiering (you guessed it) July 4.

Americans also participate in financial markets at far higher rates than many of their developed-market peers. Roughly two-thirds of US households own stocks directly or through retirement accounts, according to Federal Reserve data, compared with about one-third of households in the European Union and fewer than one-quarter in Japan.

Change Is the Only Constant. Still, America’s dominance has not been uninterrupted:

• At the turn of the 20th century, London remained the world’s financial center.
• Japan briefly overtook the US as the world’s largest stock market during its late-1980s asset bubble.
• China’s equity boom in the mid-2010s briefly threatened to narrow the gap.

“It would be foolish to assume that the US is guaranteed in the future to be No. 1,” Faber said. “It’s the same as if you told someone during the Korean War, ‘Half of your country is going to have a larger stock market than the UK in 2026.’ They’d say you’re crazy.”