The massive, and completely unjustified, September ramp in stocks has done nothing to restore investor faith in a broken market: ICI has just reported that in the week ended September 22, domestic equity mutual funds saw a 21st sequential outflow of $2.5 billion, bringing the total Year To Date to over $70 billion. And here is the kicker: the programmed stock rally in September which was supposed to "restore" confidence in the market, has resulted in $16 billion worth of September... outflows. Congratulations New York Fed, NYSE, Getco, Goldman, and, of course, SEC. You have totally killed any hope of restoring market confidence. Which brings us to an interesting question: if Brian Sacks ramps the DJIA to 36,000 on tomorrow's POMO, and nobody noticed or cared, did Brian Sack ramp the market up?

Also, according to ICI's latest flow Trend tracker, total cash at mutual funds has just barely budged in August, creeping up to 3.5% from 3.4% in July, and 4% a year earlier. But the scariest number is the annual redemptions from stock funds, which as of August 2010 have hit a multi-year high of 25.8%, a number that has risen progressively from the 23.6% a year earlier.

Weekly flows compared to the laughable moves in stocks.

Cumulative flows: