Fed Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer gave really interesting prepared remarks that could be enlightening to long-term investors who have the Eurozone (EZ) investments on their choice list.

“The decision to use the single currency (euro, which is now only 16 years old) to drive the European project forward was a risky one, and at some stage or probably in several stages, it will be necessary to put the missing fiscal framework into place … in the longer run, EMU (European Monetary Union) will not survive unless it also brings prosperity to its members (youth unemployment remains above 50 percent in both Spain and Greece)," he said.

"That means that the most important challenge of the future will require an increase in productivity growth in Europe (was at negative -0.1 percent in Q4 of 2014)."

At the same occasion, ECB President Mario Draghi said: “Recently, economic conditions have improved somewhat in Europe, but growth is too low everywhere.” He also added inflation was too low, which is a sign of economic weakness, and people in Europe are frustrated by the lack of growth they have witnessed in recent years.

The Eurozone Consumer Confidence Index declined further into negative territory by -0.9 points to - 5.5 compared to April.

In context of all the above and because at present there is such a lot of chatter about now is one of these better moments for investing in the EZ, as a long-term investor I’d prefer to wait until the overall EZ picture finally clears up for the very simple reason the Eurozone isn’t out of the woods yet because of the economic, financial and structural problems it is still facing while internal political as well as geopolitical problems remain unresolved, e.g. the Ukraine situation, to name only one.

Besides all that, San Francisco Fed President John Williams made some interesting remarks saying on Thursday the minutes of the FOMC meetings have become so detailed and such a central focus for investors and the news media that the quality of policy debates may be suffering as a result, noting: “Everyone ... is fixated about how many people said ‘The sun rises in the East.’”

On the economy Williams added, “If I don't say Q1 growth was weak, it might say in the minutes, a ‘few’ members thought Q1 growth was weak, and what were the rest of us thinking, that it was strong? ... We are getting ourselves into a transparency that is actually stopping us from having conversations.” Williams confirmed that the Fed is committed to reaching its 2 percent inflation goal.

In the meantime important recent data on the U.S. remain decent. On the job front, positive news continuous with initial claims for jobless insurance increasing last week to 274,000 while the 4 week moving average eased to 266,250 and continuing claims for unemployment insurance slipping to 2.211 million (-16.7 percent y/y). Both indicators remained at a 15-year low.

The Conference Board Leading Economic Index (LEI) for the U.S. increased again by 0.7 percent in April to 122.3 (2010 = 100), following a 0.4 percent increase in March and after a 0.2 percent decline in February and with seven out of 10 components advancing, while remaining comfortably above its pre-crisis levels, which is important for long-term investors.

All that said, the next FOMC meeting on June 16-17 that will be followed by a press conference could really become interesting to see how really data-dependent the Fed really will have become.

Anyway, for long-term investors (not traders) it shouldn’t be of such great importance when the Fed will finally start hiking rates, and a few months earlier shouldn’t matter.

What’s of huge importance, and always has been the case, is trying to buy when practically everybody else is trying to sell.

Believe me, that’s easier said than done, and if you plan to try it you’ll need ready available cash!