What the SEC proposed, and where it stands
On May 5, 2026, the Securities and Exchange Commission proposed letting companies file one semiannual report on a new Form 10-S in place of three quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, according to the SEC chair's statement on the proposal. Comments were due July 6, 2026, according to a law-firm note. We could not verify whether the proposal has since been adopted, withdrawn or is still pending. Check the SEC's website before treating any of this as a rule.
The proposal bears on this topic because companies that chose the semiannual option could still give quarterly information through earnings releases furnished on Form 8-K, according to a Deloitte summary. The release may therefore keep existing even if the quarterly filing changes.
What an earnings report is made of
“Earnings report” covers several documents with different legal standing. Coverage often blurs them together.
Earnings press release
Companies usually publish results in a press release and furnish it to the SEC on Form 8-K under Item 2.02. “Furnished” is not the same as “filed.” The SEC's final rule 33-8176 says 8-K release material is furnished, not filed. A 2022 compliance guide says neither the SEC nor the exchanges require an earnings release, but securities-law obligations apply once one is issued. That guide is secondary, so verify it against SEC rules before quoting it.
The release is a curated summary. In a 2018 request for comment, SEC staff asked whether the release and the 10-Q differ meaningfully, and noted that footnotes and a comprehensive MD&A generally appear in the 10-Q rather than the release.
Earnings call and slides
Many companies pair the release with a call and slides. A secondary compliance guide says a company can avoid filing the call transcript if the release comes out within 48 hours before the call. Treat that as a lead to check, not a settled rule.
Form 10-Q and Form 10-K
According to DFIN Solutions, the 10-Q's first part holds condensed financial statements, MD&A, market-risk disclosures and internal-control discussion. The second part covers items such as legal proceedings and unregistered sales of equity. The 10-K is the annual filing with the full-year record.
What's audited and what isn't
The core statements are the income statement, the balance sheet and the cash flow statement, as Charles Schwab's educational guide and Wikipedia's overview both describe. Read those first. Check the release's headline numbers against the statements in the filing rather than assuming they match.
On audit status, secondary sources say 10-K statements are audited and 10-Q statements are generally unaudited. We did not confirm this in SEC primary text, so treat it as widely reported rather than verified. Either way, do not assume a release figure carries audit assurance until you have matched it to the filed statements.
Non-GAAP and “adjusted” figures
Many releases lead with adjusted measures that strip out items management considers unusual. Regulation G requires a company that discloses a non-GAAP measure to present the most directly comparable GAAP measure and a reconciliation between them, according to the SEC's own page on the rule. Item 10(e) of Regulation S-K applies the same requirement to SEC filings, according to a Covington & Burling summary.
Regulation G also bars non-GAAP measures that are materially misleading, according to a Baker Botts analysis. The SEC's framework includes a prohibition on adjusting performance measures to smooth items identified as non-recurring, per final rule 33-8176. Whether a specific adjustment crosses that line is fact-specific. The SEC gives examples rather than a general test, so no test is offered here. What you can do is find the reconciliation, read what was removed, and ask whether similar costs or gains keep recurring.
Guidance and forward-looking statements
Guidance, a company's projection of future results, is optional. Many companies give it in the release or on the call, according to the 2022 compliance guide, and the SEC staff's 2018 request for comment treats it as optional as well. Guidance is a forecast, not a promise.
Venable's 2024 analysis says forward-looking statements are generally protected under the statutory safe harbor, which the sources call the PSLRA safe harbor, when accompanied by meaningful cautionary language. A low-reliability marketing page from Daeryun Law says courts increasingly dismiss generic boilerplate warnings, and that the safe harbor generally does not cover projections made in connection with an IPO. Treat both points as lawyers' summaries rather than settled doctrine. A warning tied to the specific risks a company faces tells you more than a generic one.
Where to look and what to check first
Read in this order:
- The GAAP income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement, in the release or the filing.
- The reconciliation for every adjusted figure the release highlights.
- Whether guidance is given, and whether the filing repeats it.
- The MD&A and footnotes in the 10-Q or 10-K, which carry the explanations releases generally leave out.
Before acting on the semiannual proposal, confirm its current status with the SEC. Filing deadlines are not covered here because the sources conflict on them.