The two-week window

A problem affecting wealth is rarely sudden. It is the end of a sequence, and the earlier steps in that sequence are public and dated.

A bank does not fail overnight. Its strain shows in its filings and its regulator's actions for months. A counterparty does not collapse without warning. Liens, judgments and a late filing appear while the situation is still deteriorating. A sanctions designation is published before its consequences run through everything the named person controls.

Across the cases the desk has studied, the gap between the public record and the consequence runs to days, and often two weeks or more. That window is narrow, but it is enough to act inside, provided someone is reading the record the day it changes.