Not too difficult. Not exactly says Larry Wachtel, market analyst at Prudential Securities. We went through the pre-announcement season in which more than 300 companies had negative preannouncements. Having screened those out, and reduced the estimates for those who haven't reported yet you are able to live with at least earnings that do not provide a terrible surprise. Dan Seiver, professor of economics at Miami University in Ohio says results have to be lowered because so many start out unrealistically high.
Expectations start out way too high and they get cut and cut and cut.
Expectations for 1999 are still for double-digit earnings growth and that is just not going to happen. It'll have to be racheted way down. In New York, I'm Michelle Brier for Marketplace. Marketplace's John Dimsdale was in the federal courtroom in Washington, D.C. today as Microsoft's lawyers went at it. Microsoft lawyer John Warden told the judge that the Justice Department's case is like the return of the Luddites.