sheraz mian, director of research at zacks investment research, is on set with us this morning. good morning, and what is your outlook? what are you predicting? - the expectations, as you rightly point out, are very low. they have been coming down as the quarter progressed. earlier we were looking for earnings growth of close to 4%. it's down now to 0.4% for the second quarter, so extremely low expectations. that should make it easier for companies to jump through there. my sense is when all is said and done, the q2 earnings season will not be materially different from what we saw in q1. - why so dramatically low? what is the stumbling block here? - guidance. at the time of the q1 earnings releases, the overwhelming majority of companies guided higher. as i mentioned at the time, expectations were for earnings growth of about 4%, and those kept coming down as the guidance came through - and that will be the key thing to watch this earnings season as well, because expectations for the second half of 2013 remain quite high. - the last time you were here, you mentioned that the fin