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No headline chasing, just good, quality, meaningful reads. Let's get you caught up.

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Hey squad,

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Here's the good stuff this week...

• Options strategies underdeliver and overcharge,
• Correlations change, your portfolio should too,
• Liquid alts: useful but tricky,
• Why QofE is a must in M&A,
• Buy and hold rarely holds,
• Time wealth > money wealth,
• New rules for SBA loans,
• High agency gets results
• & loads more of the good stuff below.

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For the Investor

🤑 Rebuffed: A Closer Look at Options-Based Strategies - Options-based strategies promise stock-like returns with less risk, but most just end up delivering worse returns and worse drawdowns than a plain mix of index funds and T-bills. Turns out, you’re mostly just paying high fees for fancy wrappers.

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🤑 Portfolio Implications of Time-Varying Correlations - Asset class correlations bounce all over the place, and using old averages can backfire hard. Switching up your mix based on regime shifts could cut risk and still keep returns solid.

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🤑 How to Approach Liquid Alternatives in Your Portfolio - Liquid alternatives might help with portfolio diversification, but picking the wrong fund can sting more than in traditional assets.

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🤑 Quality of Earnings: A Critical Lens for Financial Analysts - Traditional audits miss way too much. QofE has become the go-to move for M&A and PE deals. It digs into actual cash flow, revenue quality, and customer concentration. It can also find the smoke and mirrors that GAAP reporting tends to gloss over.

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🤑 When Buy-and-Hold Dies - A lot of people say they’re buy-and-hold until things get weird, then they bail with no idea what comes next. Getting out is easy—getting back in is the hard part, especially when fear and politics start messing with your head.

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For the Entrepreneur

🤑 ‘Time Affluence’ Is a Different Way to Think About Wealth - Money might ease some stress, but if you’re still drowning in mental clutter, you’re broke in a different currency. Feeling like you have enough time is what actually moves the needle on happiness.

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🤑 How DOGE Is Changing the Process for SBA Loans - SBA gave $300M in loans to kids with fake names, so now apps need age checks. 43% of staff is getting cut to save $435M, but say core programs won’t get touched.

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🤑 High Agency - High agency is clear thinking, fast action, and not waiting for permission. It’s the trait of people who shape the world instead of reacting to it.

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🤑 Would $2M at 23 Make You “Set for Life”? - $2M at 23 could give you the freedom to do anything, but not the cushion to do nothing.

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🤑 The Hidden Path to Productivity: 5 Ways to Prioritize Happiness - Working yourself into the ground might get you the win, but you’ll be too fried to enjoy it. Real performance comes from being present and giving your brain space to breathe. Happiness isn’t the reward, it might actually be the engine.

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Link Building Has Changed ​ Are you still relying on outdated tactics like guest post networks? ​ You know, stale 500-word articles spat out by AI, questionable links to CBD sites and essay-writing services, "write for us" pages, with a menu featuring just about every category imaginable. ​ These unnatural outbound links simply don't deliver results anymore. ​ ​Smash Digital builds premium links (DR50+) on reputable sites you actually recognize — think HubSpot, MailChimp, G2, and other top-tier, legitimate brands. ​ Ready? ​ ​See if Your Site Qualifies​ ​

• ​The Abundance of Complexity Requires Simplicity​​
  - Overlapping rules and red tape block new housing, drive up prices, and reward the wealthy while locking out everyone else.
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• ​Seventeen years after that nice Mr Musk sued me, victory is mine - Tesla’s getting wrecked by the same people who once loved it, not for the cars, but because Elon went full villain and now the mob wants blood.
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• ​You Can’t Treat Me This Way​ - Anger might seem irrational, but it evolved as a tool to demand better treatment—basically a social bargaining chip that says, “Respect me or pay the price.” Hatred is different.

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​Are You Spending Your Life on Things You Actually Enjoy and Care About? - Work feels way less soul-sucking when you know what actually lights you up. Jonathan Fields breaks down how knowing your “sparketype” might help you make better work and life calls. He mixes that with ways to stay steady—like meditation, movement, and real community—so the chaos of chasing meaning doesn’t eat you alive.

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​Apple | Spotify​

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Are You Spending Your Life o... Mar 21 · 10% Happier with Dan Har... 78:28   ​

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• ​Flora Fauna AI is a collaborative whiteboard for all your favorite AI tools in one spot, where you can mix text, image, and video generation all in one space. Made for creatives who want to build and explore content workflows - kind of like using Notion and Zapier. Unlike tools like Runway ML, which focus more on editing, Flora Fauna is all about ideation, experimentation, and real-time collaboration, making it a flexible playground for creative teams.

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❌ No hype ❌ No BS

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Members, here are some of the threads you may have missed…

• A new investment opportunity in the fintech space. A venture deal market infrastructure play.
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• Scott gave us a look at ChatGPT image generation and what he's messing around with.
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• Andrew shares a nice find to help with tax loss harvesting.​
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• Geoff styarts a conversation about the trend of nearly half of the companies with negative FCF still paid dividends in 2024.
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• Dustin gets recommendations from the group on how to invest in paper, or physical gold, and how to store it.

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Check out The Vault, where you'll find any epic and value bomb post/thread immortalized.

In Snowball...

• Upcoming group calls:
  • M&A chat coming up April 10.​
  • Watch for details on our upcoming FS chats.
• More excellent Fireside chats always in the works - stay tuned.
• Members can access recordings of all our Fireside Chats anytime here.​
• You'll also find investing opportunities for members to take advantage of.

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Join Snowball.

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Disclaimer: Not financial, investing or tax advice. This newsletter is strictly for information, entertainment and education purposes. Nothing in here is investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This newsletter is not tax advice. Talk to your professional advisors. Do your own research. There will also be affiliate links in here from time to time because we like free money.

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