Zoom

USinternetworking Inc., an Annapolis company that offers business software over the Internet, has become Wall Street's latest upstart high-tech darling.In its first day of public trading yesterday, the company saw its stock zoom from an opening price of $21 to close at $57.50 on the Nasdaq market. USinternet-working was the 10th most active stock on U.S. markets, with 12.68 million shares changing hands.This near-tripling of USinternetworking's value came in spite of the fact that the company was founded just a year ago January and has yet to turn a profit.

Chapman Holdings Inc., a Baltimore brokerage and investment bank, said Tuesday that its fourth quarter and annual profits surged in 1999. For its fourth quarter, which ended Dec. 31, the company reported a net profit of $1.2 million on revenue of $4.3 million. By comparison, Chapman Holdings booked a net loss of $825,000 on $689,000 in revenue in the comparable three months in 1998. For the year, Chapman Holdings said it earned $364,000 on revenue of $8.5 million. Revenue increased 180 percent compared with 1998 when Chapman Holdings lost $1.1 million on revenue of $3 million.

A rebounding stock market helped lift Legg Mason Inc.'s income by 47 percent, setting a record as the Baltimore brokerage and money management company raked in more from fees in its fiscal second quarter. Net income in the quarter that ended Sept. 30 was $66.6 million, up from $45.4 million in last year's quarter. The company also reported record diluted earnings per share, which rose 93 cents, up 41 percent, from 66 cents in the fiscal second quarter last year. The company's assets have soared this year, and it is among several brokerages that have reported double-digit percentage increases in quarterly earnings as the market has surged.

The Ravens have sold nearly 90 percent of the season tickets available for their debut season, despite above-average prices and an unpopular licensing requirement.Wednesday was the deadline for first-day priority, and all applications received by then will be randomly sorted by a computer and assigned seats. Applications received after that will be processed on a first-come, first-served basis, according to the day they get to the team.The team began accepting ticket orders by mail last month and by phone this week, and also set up drop-off boxes on Wednesday for first-day priority.

In today's cable television industry, you either get big or get out. With its weekend agreement to acquire the cable properties of the E. W. Scripps Co., Comcast Corp. has reaffirmed its belief that bigger is better.The $1.58 billion deal, which will bring Comcast's subscriber base to 4.3 million, will make the company the nation's third-largest cable TV operator.Comcast, which owns cable TV systems serving Baltimore, Harford and Howard counties, will still lag far behind the twin titans of the industry, Tele-Communications Inc. (TCI)

NEW YORK -- U.S. stocks, led by oil shares, rose yesterday amid speculation that Exxon Corp.'s talks to buy Mobil Corp. will spark more mergers. A rally in computer shares such as Microsoft Corp. and Internet stocks sent the Nasdaq Composite Index to its first record since July 20.The possibility of an Exxon-Mobil combination "is going to start merger mania again," said Tim Chesterfield, who helps manage $2.65 billion at Pavilion Asset Management in Brighton, England. Chesterfield said he owns Exxon and may buy more oil stocks.

OCEAN CITY -- This is the kind of guy you are: Bold, innovative, sharp crease in the slacks, not afraid of a challenge. So when you heard about the First Annual Cannonball Run, a high-speed, anything-goes race from Towson to Ocean City, your first thought was: This is all me.Only being the maverick that you are, you ran the race a day earlier than everyone else.On a warm, breezeless Friday morning, with the skies the color of swamp water, and every cop on the Eastern Shore just itching to pull out his ticket book, you climbed in your Jeep Cherokee and took 'em all on."

Yesterday was a mixed day on Wall Street for defense contractors. Some military suppliers posted big gains, and others were hit hard from investors. United Technologies Corp. was one of the big losers. Its stock fell more than 28 percent to close at $47.50. On the flip side, Raytheon Co., a maker of the Patriot missile and a variety of other products for the military, posted a gain of nearly 27 percent. "United Technologies got clobbered," said Nicholas P. Heymann, a defense analyst at Prudential Securities.

IF CONGRESS wants evidence about how federal tax policy can transform consumer behavior, it need look no further than a forthcoming report on the current state of the American home equity loan.Whereas barely 30 years ago second mortgages were considered a backwater of consumer credit, aimed primarily at people who had no other way to raise cash, today they are a product for the creme de la creme: Home equity borrowers have higher incomes than the average American household, they pay much less for their credit than people who take out ordinary consumer loans, and they default on their obligations at a very low rate.

Televising the Super Bowl remains very much a huge event, but, in some small way, downsizing has struck. It used to be that networks would crow about taking the Old MacDonald approach to cameras -- here a camera, there a camera, everywhere a camera, camera.Not this year.CBS will use 16 to cover today's game in Minneapolis, seven fewer than it had in Super Bowl XX."In the past, it had been good for executives to say, 'We had one more camera than last year,' " Bob Stenner, producer of the game telecast, said in a news conference last week.