. >> mark ruu terks s was re-elected. election in france and later in germany where right-wing candidates are hoping for upset victories. president trump and angela merkel met at the white house. but they made nice in front of the world at a joint news conference friday. our chief management strategy and equity strategists are here. here we are approaching the end of the first quarter. >> things are looking good. the economy is improving and we are seeing that in terms of corporate profits. now we are heading into the third quarter in which we are emerging from this earnings recession, and expectations are we'll see earnings up 10% in the first quarter of 2017. maria: was that better than you expected in tell us what that earnings both means. >> the 6% growth we saw, the earnings have ended up being better than the expectations by 3.5 percentage points. we could see earnings up 13%, not just the 10% now. maria: let's talk about that. the earnings story is getting better. the economic story is getting better. but the feder