i spoke to ford cfo bob shanks.bout the impact of the dollar on the company's international operations and how bad it could get. listen. >> if we look ahead for balance of the year, my guess would be overall exchange on the bottom line would be pretty muted. >> even if the dollar spikes higher? we don't know if it will do that but even if that happens? >> depends to what degree and depends against the broader market or certain currencies. but it has appreciated quite a bit versus a whole basket of currencies which we're exposed, overall effect, pluses and minuses so far have been relatively muted as i said. liz: you do business in a lot of countries. it is hard to handle all the currencies and where they move. ceo mark fields promised this year would be better, more profitable than last year. what would get you there? >> well it is really two things. it is going to occur in the second half. we talked about that back in january. that is still true today. we think the year will be a very strong year. mark called it a

miss a beat in terms of its contribution to our profitability in north america going forward. >> bob shanksmotor company. on a day when ford as you heard bob say, they fell short when it comes to the bottom line, three cents shy of estimates. he points out that look, the tax rate came in higher than many on wall street were expecting, that's their reasoning in terms of the explanation behind the miss. guys, back to you. >> all right. phil lebeau, i'll take it from there, great interview. ford shares still under pressure by about .33%. as the overall markets have been climbing back into positive territory, they've been weaker on the day. dow down 121 at the lowest. nasdaq down about 1% as well. we did get a weaker-than-expected consumer confidence number. but case shiller for february came in a touch higher than expected. shares of merck rallying after earnings topped expectations, first quarter profit did fall 44%, but merck is still one of the biggest gainers this morning. up by about 5%, carl. quite a move. given all the other earnings names we've seen in the parade. >> best day for merck

we will interview the cfo bob shanks a little later on. apple poised to open up 33% if profits. more than 61 million iphones were sold. revenue in china grew 71% from a year ago him apple boosting the capital return program. tim cook on last night's conference call. take a listen. >> we are in the very fortunate position of generating more cash than we need to run our business an keep making these important investments. so today, we're announcing another significant update to our capital return program, expanding its size to $200 billion through march of 2017 to reflect our strong confidence in what lies ahead for apple. >> of course jim the record cash now at $194 billion. pointing out they can combine gm and ford and tesla and still have some left in the bank. >> my answer is why the heck would they want to do that? okay. this is one of those quarters where tim cook really had to restrain himself. as a matter of fact, there was one moment he was talking about the apple watch. by which the way show wes are up. i went to my help my mess engs. i checked my stocks. he didn't say t