Annual Report

Baltimore financial services company eChapman Inc. said it earned a first-quarter profit of $245,000, or 2 cents a share, on revenue of $1.7 million. That compares with a loss of $1.6 million, or 13 cents a share, on revenue of $1.4 million in last year's first quarter. The company attributed the improved results to cutting costs and a revised strategy that de-emphasizes Internet operations. As part of the moves, eChapman is seeking a buyer for NetNoir, an African-American-oriented Internet portal the company agreed to acquire last July, General Counsel James P. Wu said yesterday.

The board that oversees the Naval Academy is taking on a Republican cast. President Bush made his first appointments Friday to the academy's board of visitors, filling slots that had been held by Clinton appointees with GOP activists, a former Reagan administration official and a Texas businessman who has donated tens of thousands of dollars to Bush campaigns. The appointments are the latest in a sea change in leadership at the military college, which named a new commandant of midshipmen in January and is expected to name a new superintendent in the next few weeks.

Baltimore has made progress on some of the worst problems facing companies in the central financial district, according to an annual assessment by a local business group, the Downtown Partnership. The local business group's annual report doesn't dwell on the loss of jobs and revenue due to the economic slump. But, officials acknowledge, the core business district still faces parking shortages, a lack of retail stores, unused and unfit buildings, uncollected trash and a perception of high crime.

WASHINGTON -- Many of the nation's big cities are reporting a rise in homicides this year, leading some crime experts to warn that a decade of good news on crime, much like the strong economy, might have come to an end. Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Phoenix, Boston and Pittsburgh are among cities where homicides have risen significantly this year. This marks a reversal from the 1990s, when homicides and violent crimes declined steadily. The Los Angeles Police Department reports 520 homicides as of Nov. 17, up from 479 during the same period last year.

DO YOU automatically throw away annual and semiannual company reports? Not so fast. "Reports to stockholders can tell you a lot about the companies and stocks you own," says the National Association of Investors. "Things to consider: Don't judge a report by its cover; many great companies shun fancy reports, and vice versa. ... Be a sleuth; it's not that the company is dishonest, but top executives put the firm's best foot forward. "After reading an annual report, you may have questions.

eChapman.com Inc., the Internet financial services company started by Baltimore broker Nathan A. Chapman Jr., told federal securities regulators yesterday that its annual report would be filed late because of "unexpected turnover in its accounting department." eChapman, which filed the notification with the Securities and Exchange Commission after the stock market closed, said the company was "unable to complete its financial statements in a timely fashion." "Unfortunately," the company said in a statement, "eChapman.

Be sure not to ignore the annual report from your mutual fund when it arrives in the mail. Check out: Performance: Funds are required to compare returns with at least one benchmark, either a comparable market index or the average performance of peers. Good reports show both measures. See how your fund stacks up. If it consistently misses the targets set by peers and the index, re-examine strategy. Maybe the fund takes minimal risks and is designed for a lower return. If not, maybe the management is not so good.

You are about to get a visit from your fund managers. They're not coming to your house personally, of course, but it's annual report season and management's state-of-the-fund address should be read as if it were personal correspondence. The manager is talking to you, the fund owner and boss. Investors mostly ignore annual reports; they don't listen to what management is saying. But with the market fresh off its first down year since 1994, annual reports should make for some interesting reading this year.

The annual U.S. News and World Report rankings of the country's graduate schools, released today, contains little that is new for Maryland's schools and that is good news to William Destler of the University of Maryland, College Park. "It's no longer a surprise when we show up in these lists," said Destler, the school's dean of research and graduate programs. "I take that as a sign of progress." Though the highest rankings among local schools are recorded by the Johns Hopkins University -- its medical school takes its annual No. 2 spot behind Harvard University and its school of public health remains No. 1 -- UMCP continues to appear amid the top schools in engineering, education and business.

DAFFODILS and lacrosse players are showing up on the fields, which can mean only one thing for shareholders: It's time for the annual report and proxy statement. Spring is the time that companies tend to send these yearly updates to shareholders. Some investors won't even sneak a peak, while others dutifully thumb through the glossy annual report. Still fewer will tackle the proxy, a colorless document that seems to beg to be ignored. With the Internet and other up-to-the-minute sources, investors today have more ways to get information about the companies they own. Even so, proxies and annual reports can yield insights into the company and its management that might help investors decide whether they want to remain a shareholder, financial experts say. The problem for many investors is separating the boilerplate language and chief executive officer euphoria from the true picture of the company.