Less Is More

The SEC has a renewed focus on rationalising public company disclosure. There are some quick fixes that would reduce information overload.

The investing public is suffering from information overload. It's a diagnosis handed down by Mary Jo White, Chair of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and caused by the pages of dense disclosure public companies produce each year to satisfy their ever-increasing SEC reporting obligations.

In recent months, White has been offering ideas on how public company disclosure could be streamlined to remedy the problem. Those ideas span from the obvious – like eliminating repetitive disclosure – to the transformative – like replacing today's periodic reporting model with a single company profile containing information that changes infrequently and real-time updates as new circumstances arise. Company profiles are an idea the SEC has thought about for years.