Ignorance is Bliss

Get rid of pesky quarterly reports, since the less investors know, the better:

In a statement to reporters, Trump said outgoing Pepsi CEO Indra Nooyi suggested a six-month reporting schedule.

"I'd like to see twice but we're going to see," Trump said. "So we're looking at that very very curiously, we're looking at twice a year instead of four times a year."

Public companies must report their sales, profits and the state of the company's balance sheet every quarter. That has been required since the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, which was put in place to give more confidence and transparency to investors in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash. That act also created the SEC, which sets the regulations which govern those quarterly reports.

Businesses have long complained that the reports require company executives to focus too much on the short term. Juicing numbers impresses investors, but it can force companies to miss out on long term trends. One of the reasons Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk wants to take his company private, he told his employees last week, was the way quarterly reports distort decisions at the company.