Hi, Nikhil,

Advice #1. I re-read You Can Be a Stock Market Genius every once in a while. It's so well written, insightful, and funny. You'll always get new things out of it. Make Greenblatt your guru. ;-)

Advice #2. If you want to find special situations, I've found it very useful to have a Google Alerts search return the results for a variety of terms, "spinoff" being one of them. That'll keep you well-apprised of upcoming deals and provide you some "free" internet analysis of many of the deals. I keep a spreadsheet of all the special situations I've found, with web links and timing, for easy reference.

Advice #3. Find a copy of Seth Klarman's Margin of Safety (many PDF copies are available). It has a good section on demutualizations, as does one of the Peter Lynch books (tho I haven't read him).

What special situations do you find interesting now?

Jim