Geopolitical fears may be ruling the stock market right now, but earnings should soon driving performance — and those are expected to be good, experts told CNBC on Thursday.
"We just have to get the macro to calm down a little bit. It might take a couple of weeks, but I do think that the economy is actually the underpinning of it all," said Stephanie Link, equity portfolio manager at TIAA Investments.
"The economy is a little bit better. The global economies are a little bit better. … Earnings are going to be better and that is what people care about when people are picking a stock. If earnings are going up, usually the stocks will follow," she told "Closing Bell."
Concerns about events in North Korea, Syria and now Afghanistan have been weighing on the market. On Thursday, the U.S. dropped "the mother of all bombs" in Afghanistan, causing stocks to close lower.
It was the first time the GBU-43 bomb has ever been used in combat, according to the Pentagon. The bomb contains 11 tons of explosives and is formally known as the Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) bomb.
Art Hogan, chief market strategist at Wunderlich Securities, believes there will be more clarity on what's happening in the geopolitical hot spots next week.
He also thinks the market will begin to take a closer look at earnings, which he thinks could see double-digit growth for the first quarter.
"If we can get in and out of some of these skirmishes without a full-on military event, then I think that we start to focus on things that are more fundamentals and both the economy and earnings are doing better," he told "Closing Bell."
JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup both posted strong earnings on Thursday.
—CNBC's Rachel Cao contributed to this report.