The Useless Stock Pick of the Week

Ladies, gentlemen, intergalactic friends-of-the-blog,

Welcome to a new section of the UIB that we have been kicking around since its inception: the Useless Stock Pick of the Week.  In it, we will develop a thesis regarding the future of a particular stock, based on some pretty absurd reasoning that you would only trade on if you were way too rich to possibly become poor, or you were a dummy.  That said, we think we can come up with some ridiculous stuff and we'll see if we can still beat the market, like that monkey throwing darts.


This week's USPOW:  Hornbeck Offshore Services (HOS)

Who are they?
Hornbeck owns a fleet of vessels, which provide services to deepwater oil rigs, primarily in the Gulf of Mexico.  Their national claim-to-fame is that they were the firm that successfully sued the federal government to have the initial moratorium on offshore Gulf of Mexico drilling lifted.

The thesis:
HOS is poised to gain from the onset of the new NBA basketball season.

The thesis is more about Hornbeck's competitor than themselves: Edison Chouest.  See, Chouest is owned by Gary Chouest.  And I mean OWNED.  Privately held.  He gets lots of money.  Owned.  Well, Mr. Chouest is a minority partner in the New Orleans Hornets, and is a known superfan.  He has also been in the process of purchasing the remaining share of the team from George Shinn for months now.  This process was supposed to happen during the offseason, but has dragged on into the new season, which began last night.  Clearly, these activities will be a distraction to Chouest as the new season starts, and who will profit from Chouest's ADD in the form of higher market share?  Hornbeck Offshore Services.

So there you have it: HOS is the USPOW because the NBA season started this week.