IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said she thinks the Fed should wait until the first half of 2016 to start raising rates (normalization process) at the occasion of the presentation of the IMF annual review of the U.S. economy.

I personally prefer referring to the text of the IMF review itself that states: “… The FOMC should remain data dependent and defer its first increase in policy rates until there are greater signs of wage or price inflation than are currently evident ... this would put lift-off into the first half of 2016 … higher U.S. policy rates could still result in a significant and abrupt rebalancing of international portfolios with market volatility and financial stability consequences that go well beyond U.S. borders…”, which, I think, has a high probability to occur, but not as “abruptly” as the IMF seems to worry about, as it states itself the Fed’s first rate increase in almost 9 years has been carefully prepared and telegraphed.

For investors in the U.S. and the dollar, the most important part of the review is where it states the U.S. is expected to grow in 2015 by 2.5 percent overall and by 3.0 percent in 2016, thanks to a solid labor market, accommodative financial conditions and cheaper oil.

The IMF assesses in its review the dollar as moderately overvalued, which, if so, shouldn’t be considered as a blinking red light for the Fed.

About inflation, I’d want to add whatever the IMF says, it could be good to take also a look at e.g. the Dallas Fed Trimmed Mean PCE inflation rate, which is an alternative measure of core inflation in the price index for personal consumption expenditures (PCE) that came in for April at 1.9 percent. Please keep in mind not a single PCE measurement tool tells it all.

To me, the U.S. outlook remains one of the best performing big economic blocks in the world with (1) employment up; (2) inflation up; (3) growth also still up.

My question therefore is why should the Fed wait till the first half of 2016 to start normalizing its monetary policy?

Of course, the IMF is not responsible for the Fed complying with its statutory mandate of promoting maximum employment and stable prices.

The IMF seems "understandably" worried about coming volatility spikes, for the moment, markets seem ignoring developments in Greece. After five years of relentless crises in Athens, markets have become, also understandably, complacent about the possibility of a GREXIDENT, which would be a default by Greece or even worse, a GREXIT that stands for Greece leaving the euro area.

Investors would be wrong dismissing the potential importance of the events playing out with/in Greece right now. Please keep in mind, should a deal fail to result from the current negotiations between Greece and its creditors then it is certainly not an overstatement to say the possibility Greece leaving the eurozone would be definitively on the table.

In case this should occur, this could become extremely important as literally everybody would have to accept the euro would stop being the “single” currency with “irrevocable” membership, and instead, the eurozone would become nothing more than a fixed-peg exchange rate system. Believe me, this is much more serious than many can imagine today, not at least because the euro is the second most traded currency in the world.

For now, it’s completely impossible to have an idea what could happen during the coming days, but it’s a fact Greece has missed today’s deadline and Greece bundling its payments to the IMF is not a good sign.

Maybe we should remember what ECB President Mario Draghi said this week: “We should get used to periods of higher volatility…”

I’d like to add: “Volatility has always been part of re-pricing of markets.”

Yes, weekend risk seems to be back! Greece's bond yields jumped this morning with the 2-year up by 200 basis points (bps) and the 10-year by 50 bps while the yield curve inverted further, confirming hereby rising short term default risk.