patterns / hiding_distress

credit thesis

Hiding distress

a distressed company that ALSO stretched its accounting period to buy time — hiding a bad year on top of real trouble; fails 3×+ the base rate, the strongest failure signal we score

the signature — what the register must show
period_stretch AND at least one of z_distress / stable_zombie / liquidity_squeeze / slow_bleed / hidden_distress / recap_candidate

Why it matters

A company already in financial distress that ALSO lengthened its accounting period — the two together are damning: the numbers are bad AND management bought up to nine extra months before having to show them. The backtest puts it above 3× the base failure rate, the strongest death signal in the set.

The play

Urgent restructuring / rescue-finance origination — the clock is explicit (the stretched accounts must land) and the outcome, untreated, is usually insolvency. Move now or wait for the asset sale.

How it's kept honest

The badge is recomputed nightly across the whole index, and re-evaluated live the moment a company files — so a match is always a statement about the current register, not a stale list. Like every signal on the radar: a prompt to look closer, never a verdict.