President Trump asked the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday to study allowing publicly-traded U.S. companies to report financial performance every six months instead of once a quarter, heightening scrutiny of how the practices affect corporate costs and behavior.

Quarterly and annual reporting standards were established by the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as Congress worked with President Franklin D. Roosevelt to provide more transparency to investors after the stock market crash of 1929 heralded the Great Depression. Requirements were tightened further by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of the early 2000s, a response to the collapse of energy firm Enron and telecommunications provider WorldCom, and critics have suggested they prompt some executives to focus on short-term profit and earnings targets at the expense of long-term health