President Donald Trump brought a long-simmering debate on Wall Street to the surface Friday when he prodded regulators to look into scaling back how often publicly traded companies report financial results.

Trump's proposal—released via Twitter and prompted, he said, by a recent conversation he had with PepsiCo Inc. CEO Indra Nooyi—would do away with quarterly reports and move to a semi-annual system.

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump In speaking with some of the world's top business leaders I asked what it is that would make business (jobs) even better in the U.S. “Stop quarterly reporting & go to a six month system,” said one. That would allow greater flexibility & save money. I have asked the SEC to study!

Sent via Twitter for iPhone.

To those across the investing community who favor such an idea, it's just what's needed to reduce corporate costs, boost a flagging market for initial public offerings (IPOs), and get companies to move away from the sort of short-term focus that can harm long-term growth. To its detractors, it is, in the words of Hilton Capital Management's Dick Bove, “a horrible idea.”

It would be a “major move to provide less information” at a time when investors' access to information has “already been dramatically reduced,” Bove said.