A practical guide to the stock market filled with case studies and tools to help you find overlooked investment opportunities like spin-offs, mergers, and bankruptcies. A comprehensive and practical guide to the stock market from a successful fund manager—filled with case studies, important background information, and all the tools you’ll need to become a stock market genius.Fund manager Joel Greenblatt has been beating the Dow (with returns of 50 percent a year) for more than a decade. And now, in this highly accessible guide, he’s going to show you how to do it, too. You’re about to discover investment opportunities that portfolio managers, business-school professors, and top investment experts regularly miss—uncharted areas where the individual investor has a huge advantage over the Wall Street wizards. Here is your personal treasure map to special situations in which big profits are possible, including: -Spin-offs -Restructurings -Merger Securities -Rights Offerings -Recapitalizations -Bankruptcies -Risk Arbitrage Prepared with the tools from this guide, it won’t be long until you’re a stock market genius! Contents1. Follow the Yellow Brick Road -- Then Hang a Right2. Some Basics -- Don't Leave Home Without Them3. Chips Off the Old Stock: Spinoffs, Partial Spinoffs, and Rights Offerings4. Don't Try This at Home: Risk Arbitrage and Merger Securities5. Blood in the Streets (Hopefully, Not Yours): Bankruptcy and Restructuring6. Baby Needs New Shoes Meets Other People's Money: Recapitalizations and Stub Stocks, LEAPS, Warrants, and Options7. Seeing the Trees Through the Forest8. All the Fun's in Getting ThereAppendix: Gotham CapitalGlossaryIndex