Next logical question: where did the money go? I think the dough went to purchase US debt plain and simple, to offset foreign entities that were actively raising cash that month to keep Europe afloat. This ties in with GWR's "loss of confidence" post related to a large disposition of foreign holdings of US sovereign devices in September. As Bud Conrad points out it is impossible to pinpoint the source of these dispositions based on a single month's data, in order to further speculate on the primary motivation behind these seismic shifts. If you prodded me to rationalize what transpired, my best guess of what unfolded was Europe facing a tremendous liquidity squeeze, needed to raise capital, and had to resort to the most liquid market in the world - US debt - in order to raise the vast sums required to stabilize Europe while (KEY!) at the same time not merely transferring that instability to other markets, buying time for Europe to set up the much needed European Stabilization Fund. In a nutshell, this scenario is not a matter of lack of confidence expressed against the US but the opposite. A vote of it's ability to float capital to a starving world, in a time of dire need. This explains in part why America is further refusing to provide capital to Europe via the IMF. They already pulled their fair share of the weight in September and now it's Europe's time to ante up into the kitty.