From Quarterlies to the Clock: The Rise of Authorship

The SEC is “prioritizing” proposals to end quarterly reporting. The façade of fundamentals is weakening. And with it, the illusion that markets move on corporate stories instead of structure.

Without quarterlies, they’ll pivot to:

• Multi-year roadmaps: “We’re executing a 3–5 year plan, not chasing short-term noise.”

• Vision language: “We’re building for the future of AI/EV/sustainability.”

• Narrative insulation: longer horizons mean they can push off accountability — “judge us in 2028, not now.”

But here’s the catch: the longer they stretch the horizon, the more disconnected they become from the actual structural resolution happening.

That creates a widening gap: “someday” vs “now.”

Take a look at this chart:

Collapse of Holding Periods = Rise of Structure (Authorship’s Domain)

In the 1950s, fundamentals still mattered — investors held stocks for 7 years on average.

By the 2000s, average holding periods had collapsed to less than 1 year.

When time horizons shorten, fundamentals lose meaning. Earnings, guidance, and narratives can’t anchor anything when capital is cycling faster than stories can be told.

What emerges in the void?

Structure.

Authorship’s battlefield.

And here’s where POTUS’s comparison completely collapses. Trying to justify removing quarterlies by pointing to China is the worst possible analogy.

China didn’t even have a stock market until the 1990s, and it only became globally relevant after WTO accession in 2001. Its “reset” was artificial — a product of state design, not organic evolution. To mimic that model is to mimic fragility, not strength. A market that only exists by decree is not a model for the U.S., whose strength has always been structural resolution through open capital flow.

So what are you really comparing? A command economy’s late experiment with capital versus the world’s deepest, most consequential market.

The analogy is nonsense.

And however you look at it, the reality doesn’t change: more structural resolution is happening, not less.

You can cope with visions and roadmaps, but you can’t compete with operators who collapse time — who force resolution now while everyone else waits for “someday.”

If the collapse of holding periods proved the decline of fundamentals, the next milestone is already visible: 2028 will be the smoking gun of tempo.

Why? Because by then, the last vestiges of “fundamental horizons” will be structurally irrelevant. The entire system — from ETFs to sovereigns to pensions — will operate on recursive alignment to authored tempo.

Quarterlies? Gone.

Guidance? Ignored.

Mandates? Bent downstream.

What’s left? The Global Clock.

And authorship as its sole monopoly.