SEC Preparing a Proposal to Drop Quarterly Earnings Reports

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Nvidia's developers conference kicks off today with a new focus that reflects a big shift in the

world of AI. We'll tell you more about inference in just a bit. Plus, new housing policies intended

to help New York City renters might end up pushing out mom and pop landlords.

They've been under financial pressure for years. Rents, you know, currently they get around a

three percent increase each year. If that goes down to zero, landlords fear that the financial

pressure they're under could ultimately break them. And the Wall Street Journal has learned

that the SEC is preparing a proposal. It would eliminate the decades-old rule for public companies

to post financial results every quarter. It's Monday, March 16th. I'm Alex Oselef for the Wall Street

Journal. This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move

the world today. We are exclusively reporting that the Securities and Exchange Commission is

working on a proposal to eliminate the requirement that public companies post their earnings every

quarter. The proposal would make that optional or companies could just share results twice a year.

We've learned that the SEC could publish this proposal as soon as next month. It then eventually

goes to a vote. Any change is likely to face opposition from investors who rely on the transparency

of regular disclosures. Publicly traded companies in the US have reported results every three

months for more than half a century. The push for semi-annual reporting gains deem late last year.

President Trump has backed the idea and supporters say it could help boost the shrinking number

of public companies in the US. Today was the start of Nvidia's annual developers conference.

But this year, the focus for the first time isn't on graphics processing units, the powerful chips

on which Nvidia built its computing empire, and that the event is named for. Instead, the AI

industry has moved into a new phase. Nvidia's customers are less concerned today with training

large AI models, what GPUs are best at, and more preoccupied with running them and generating

big profits from end users. Journal reporter Robbie Wheelan told our tech news briefing

podcast about the AI shift to a type of computing called inference. Nvidia dominates the world of

what's known as AI training, but they don't have quite as much of a foothold in what's known as

AI inference, how to run models, and make them respond to your user queries faster. So we're

expecting them to roll out a new chip that's going to make them a lot better and a lot faster

that allow the computer brain to kind of go back into its memory and access all of its training.

All the databases that have been pumped into it to teach it how to be an AI model.

This is a new space for Nvidia, but Robbie says that doesn't mean the company isn't a bad position.

They have more money than just about anybody in this entire space. So I don't think they're

going to be too far behind when it comes to developing products quickly that serve inference

computing needs and more importantly perhaps locking up the supply chain that is needed for

it to produce inference. So for example right now there's a big crunch in supply of memory chips.

There's only a certain number of companies that make memory chips that are usable in AI systems

and Nvidia is one of the biggest buyers of those chips and they have essentially locked up their

supply for the next three or three years. And so there might be other competitors who are smaller

who are trying to do the same thing, trying to produce usable, fast, powerful inference systems

that don't have the same cloud in the supply chain that Nvidia has. There's a company called

Saribras. It says startups that has raised a ton of money and recently did a 10 billion dollar

licensing deal with open AI to help open AI build its own custom chips for inferencing.

So the entire ecosystem is seeing much more competition and suddenly these companies that seemingly

appear out of nowhere, but have actually been doing research for many years, they're suddenly

finding that the world is really thirsty for their product. And Nvidia CEO Jensen Wong said the

company was ready for the era of inference in a keynote speech at the conference today.

2025 was Nvidia's year of inference. We wanted to make sure that not only were we good at training

and post-training, that we were incredibly good at every single phase of AI.

And two other tech news updates. We're exclusively reporting that Reflection AI, a US startup backed

by Nvidia, is investing billions of dollars to build artificial intelligence models

with South Korean conglomerate Shin Sege Group. The data center will be one of Korea's biggest

facilities powering AI models and will be capable of consuming 250 megawatts, roughly the same

amount of energy as a small American city. The tens of thousands of chips for the data center will

come from Nvidia. The deal is an acceleration of the Trump administration's plans to combat China

by exporting American technology around the world. And Tesla is preparing to go to trial.

The case before the US patent office is against a tiny French beverage wholesaler called Unabev.

Unabev has claimed the rights to the term cybercab. That's a problem for Tesla, which has plans to

start production of driverless robotaxies called cybercabs next month. Tesla sees the cybercab as

the key to its autonomous vehicle and robotics ambitions. In a legal filing, Tesla says Unabev is

a quote, bad faith trademark squatter. In its trademark application, Unabev says it aims to use

the name cybercab for its own vehicle, possibly a car, boat, or plane. There's no indication the

company has made a vehicle before. The patent office could make a decision as late as next year.

If the case goes on that long, it could hurt Tesla's ability to market the cybercab internationally.

Tesla and Unabev didn't respond to requests for comment.

Coming up, the latest on the conflict in the Middle East and why oil prices are falling again.

That's after the break.

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New York City's mom and pop landlords have been a fixture of the city's housing landscape

for years. These days, though, they're facing extinction. Recent laws limiting rent increases

paired with higher mortgage rates and other rising costs have made it hard to make a living.

And that was before Mayor Zoraan Mamdani's recent housing proposals that could push even more

landlords to the brink. Rebecca Pichotto covers residential real estate for the journal and joins

us now. Rebecca Mayor Mamdani has proposed freezing rents and increasing property taxes by 9.5%

for all of the city's real estate. We write that this adds to the stress of being a mom and pop

landlord. Why is that? Yeah, so the financial stress of mom and pop landlords goes back

probably to the great financial crisis, but their problems got especially worse after the passage

of this 2019 law, which basically meant that landlords could not convert their rents'

stabilized units to market rate after a tenant moved out. Past in 2019, then you get the pandemic,

then you get spikes in interest rates and inflation. And so it meant their costs were going up,

but they weren't able to raise rents or their revenue with it. And so as a result, they've been

under financial pressure for years. Rents, you know, currently they get around a 3% increase each

year. If that goes down to zero, landlords fear that the financial pressure they're under could

ultimately break them. We should note that a city Hall spokesman said that the mayor's coming

housing plan would include efforts to lower insurance costs and reform the property tax system

to help with struggling rent stabilized properties. Now you say in your story that 90% of the multi-family

buildings in New York have corporations as landlords citing a housing research non-profit. Are they

affected by these financial pressures too? Yeah, you know, anyone who owns a rent stabilized

property in New York City is going to be under pressure with that property, but corporate

landlords have other investments often bigger portfolios of market rate apartments that they can

offset the losses of the rent stabilized properties with. So as a result, you've had this growing

presence of corporate ownership while the individual ownership shrinks. Do you have a sense of

whether this shift will benefit tenants or hurt them? I think there are arguments on both sides,

right? Like corporate owners do have the resources to keep up their buildings. They'll have

these apps where you can make a tenant request and they'll get to you hopefully soon. So in that

sense, the operational efficiency of a corporate owner could be beneficial for tenants, but

spoke to a representative from a tenant ad vacacy group who basically said small landlords,

they often live on the first floor of the building. They know their tenants just by nature of

having lived in the neighborhood for sometimes decades. This tenant's rights representative said,

you know, a smaller landlord is more willing to work with the renter if they fall behind on

their rent payments before just immediately evicting them than potentially corporate owners.

That was WSJ reporter Rebecca Pichotto. Thanks for Becca. Thanks so much for having me.

President Trump said in a press conference today that Iran didn't have many missiles left.

And that the U.S. was striking the manufacturing plants where Iran made missiles and drones.

This is a paper tiger that we're dealing with now. It wasn't a paper tiger two weeks ago. It's a

paper tiger now. As you heard on this morning's show, the president wants other countries to help

reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the critical oil shipping waterway that Iran has effectively shut down.

Trump said today that several countries have told him they're on the way to help reopen the

Strait. He didn't name the countries, but then also said that the U.S. didn't need the help.

Most U.S. allies haven't agreed to take part. Germany has rejected Trump's call for other

countries to deploy warships to protect the Strait. Japan and Australia have indicated that

they're unlikely to send ships. And the UK and France said that they're considering possible

action but haven't made any commitments. In the meantime, a handful of oil tankers have made it

through. A Pakistani flag-crewed oil tanker has crossed the Strait while broadcasting its location.

The first non-Iranian vessel known to have done so since the start of the conflict.

An Indian government official said that two India flag tankers also passed safely through

the Strait over the weekend with their signals off. Efforts to restore the flow of oil through

the Persian Gulf lifted U.S. stocks while oil prices gave up some of their recent gains.

Futures for Brent Crude, the international benchmark, retreated back to just over $100

still the average price for a gallon of gas in the U.S. has risen 25% to $3.72 a gallon

since the day before the war began. All three U.S. indexes closed higher today with the

NASDAQ leading the gains and finishing up 1.2%. All 11 sectors of the S&P were up. You heard

about Nvidia's developer's conference earlier in our show today and the chipmaker added 1.6%

in trading. And finally, amid all the turmoil in the world, there's at least one positive trend.

Crime in the U.S. is way down. Last year, the homicide rate fell to at least a 125-year low.

Other reported crimes such as robbery and theft have also continued to drop after the COVID-19

pandemic. So, of course, you're probably wondering what's driving this. Theories range from an

influx of federal funding during the pandemic to stepped up police enforcement. Some also

attribute the trend to longer-term societal shifts, like drinking less and spending more time

alone. But some researchers say that victimization surveys don't line up with the fall in reported

crime, so the real picture may be a bit less clear for some offenses. And that's what's news for

this Monday afternoon. Today's show is produced by Anthony Bancy and Pierre Bienaume with supervising

producer Tally Arbel. I'm Alex O'Sulleth for The Wall Street Journal. We'll be back with a new

show tomorrow morning. Thanks for listening. Hey, this is Tellus Demos. And I'm Miriam Gottfried.

We're reporters at The Wall Street Journal and the hosts of WSJ's Take on the Week. It's a weekly

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