" Investors and public commentators aren’t on board with the Securities and Exchange Commission’s plan to allow public companies to issue earnings reports twice instead of four times a year. The watchdog is polling opinions on the proposal, which it sees as a way to boost regulatory flexibility.

 
• The SEC collected comments on its semiannual reporting proposal through Monday, but as of midday Wednesday only a couple of responses submitted that day were publicly available.

 
• But the submissions the SEC has posted demonstrate strong opposition to the proposal, according to an analysis by Tzachi Zach, a professor of accounting and management information systems at Ohio State University.

 
• Nonprofit Wall Street reform group Better Markets has called the plan a “slap in the face to investors.” Investing website Motley Fool and Reddit group Wall Street Bets are also opposed to the proposal, although the American Bankers Association and oil major Exxon Mobil support it.

 
• Zach has created an artificial-intelligence-powered tracking website analyzing the comments the SEC has posted and evaluating their sentiment. As of midday Wednesday, the tracker had looked through 8,080 original comments, finding that 7,994, or 99%, opposed the semiannual reporting proposal.

 
What’s Next: Industry trade groups and other large organizations often wait to submit their comments on rule proposals until the last day. That means many substantive comments are likely still missing from the record.

 
—Kenneth Corbin and George Glover" Hopefully Greg will never make this choice.