NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Arriving by fax machine and overnight mail, sworn financial statements from top executives are pilling up at the Securities and Exchange Commission, where the staff is busy Web-posting the documents.

But with the deadline for these certified statement 24 hours away, questions loom about whether the requirements will lift the sagging confidence in corporate accounting that has hammered stocks this year.

Boeing (BA: Research, Estimates), Continental Airlines (CAL: Research, Estimates), Maytag (MYG: Research, Estimates) and Sherwin-Williams (SHW: Research, Estimates) are among the latest companies whose CEOs have said under oath that their annual reports are accurate "to the best of their knowledge."

They join more than 240 out of 947 large companies required to submit statements amid a time of stubborn skepticism over the accuracy of profit statements.

Click here for a full look at the fillings.

About 700 companies have until Wednesday to file. The rest, because of their non-calendar fiscal years, most do so by Nov. 29 at the latest.

But the lag time between the arrival of the statements and their posting on the SEC Web site may complicate the task of determining which companies stand by their numbers and which ones don't

"We are going to do it as quickly as we can," said SEC spokesman John Heine, who could not say how much time may elapse between the 5:30 p.m. Wednesday deadline and Web notification.

Companies can request a five-day extension on Aug. 15 if they don't meet the filing deadline. Those extension requests should show up in the form of a filing on the free EDGAR database, Heine said.

Following accounting scandals at Enron and WorldCom, the SEC on June 27 required companies with annual sales of more than $1.2 billion to submit the sworn statements backing up the accuracy of their financial reports.

Those reports always contained signatures of some company officers; now they must have the CEO's and CFO's.

Part confidence booster, part increased regulation, the requirement was never expected to result in massive corporate restatements like those that crippled Enron and WorldCom

The stock market has showed no apparent response. Since June 27, the Standard & Poor's index of large companies has fallen about 8 percent. Some of the first companies to certify their numbers, including Delphi Automotive (DPH: Research, Estimates) and Corning (GLW: Research, Estimates), have gotten no solid bounce.

"We view it as more of a PR campaign on the part of the SEC, which has taken a lot of criticism that Chairman Harvey Pitt is too business-friendly," said Robert J. Reid, an analyst at Briefing.com.

Restoring confidence in the profit numbers that drive stock prices may take time. Kevin Bannon, the chief investment officer at the Bank of New York, says the market needs to see improving third-quarter profits, which are due in October, before it can go higher.

"What's going to drive prices in the end is earnings," Bannon said

But the new requirements are not purely symbolic, he said.

"When things go wrong, people just want action and this is action in the form of a deadline," Bannon said. "It does remind people that not every corporate executive is not being less than forthright with their statements."