According to a recent ranking, French AXA is the largest insurance company in Europe ranked by Assets, and one of the top ten global financial services firms by revenues. Whether or not it is, is irrelevant. What matters is what Nick Hayes, U.K. head of fixed income active management, at AXA Investment Managers said in interview earlier today, in which he explained, quice succinctly, why Q€ will be a total failure. As quoted by Bloomberg, he said that "AXA Investment Managers doesn’t plan on selling much of its assets to ECB under QE, given its investment mandates for specific holdings and a lack of opportunities to put cash received to work." "People say, 'Sell government bonds and lend money to widget manufacturers.’ It doesn’t really work like that." Hayes says, adding that "Low yields don’t necessarily mean more lending to the real economy; time and confidence are key elements and last 6 years have shown QE can’t control those." Hayes went on: "AXA IM might lighten up on some holdings "at the margin," such as peripheral or core govt bonds. It has already pared an overweight position in peripheral govt bonds in recent month."The reason being that "yield levels don’t justify the position as much as before, as bonds are nearly fully valued, even as economics are still improving." His conclusion: "It’s difficult to see a huge amount of money being made out of the peripherals trade from here on.” Or, as many are discovering, a huge amount of money is now being lost on peripherals, starting with Greece and soon all the other ones, and mean reversion finally kicks in with a vengeance. In short: it hasn't even started and QE is already a complete failure. And now, back to the Danish central bank threatening with castration anyone who dares to save money inside the mattress.