joining us now is lena komileva, chief economist and managing director at g plus economics.are deep into earnings season in the u.s. and europe. we saw yesterday u.s. stocks pulled back a little bit from record highs. is that a sign of more to come? is the best over? lena: we are in extremely binary markets at the moment. you have this increased optimism about the general environment. we have some signs of receding geopolitical risk. there are signs of progress on the u.s.-china trade talks. brexit has been pushed back. there is also the receding volatility at record lows. the turmoil of the fourth quarter is far behind us. we have got evidence that the worst case, recessionary default scenario, is not going to materialize. , the goldilocks combination of extremely easy monetary conditions, depressed volatility, and a stable and strong global growth environment seems to be doing the trick. having said this. , we have had a double-digit increase in equity markets since the start of the year against the backdrop of stabilizing growth. it has come with price-to-earnings growth

lena komileva is chief economist at g+ economics. thank you for talking to us.us. absolutely. a sad relief that this dreaded acceleration we've seen since the beginning there were middle of last year seems to be taking a pause. the figures were much better than expected. they come in conjunction with other cyclicals from the worlds largest economies that suggest first water activity globally was much better than feared. there is some stabilisation and global growth which is critically feeding into the euro zone which is a uk's biggest trade partner. that is good news. it suggests some of the headwinds we've seen suggests some of the headwinds we've seenin suggests some of the headwinds we've seen in the last six months there is a slower global trade, critical concerns due to the us china trade conflict, the drag from car emissions regulations in germany, these are subsiding. however the risks have not disappeared and looking at the latest business cycle activity looks pretty subdued. when you think about 0.4% first—quarter growth, in the context of decelerating