Last week, when looking at the latest fund flow data, we noted an unexpected finding: as BofA itself said, “clients don’t believe the rally, continue to sell US stocks” and added that the “smart money” has now sold stocks in the face of this bear market rally for a near record seven consecutive weeks.”

We also explained who were the offsetting buyers: the answer, as BofA explained, was that as smart money sold for a near-record 7 consecutive weeks “buybacks by corporate clients accelerated last week to their highest level since August, and are tracking above levels we saw this time last year, though below levels we observed in 2014.”

As it turns out it was not just Bank of America clients.

Bloomberg seeks to explain the substantial rebound in stocks following Jamie Dimon’s very fortuitous purchase of JPM stock just one month before the JPM board (of which Jamie is a member) authorized a $1.9 billion stock buyback…

…. it writes that “for all the positive signals being sent by stocks, buyers aren’t storming back. In fact, going by one measure of U.S. outflows, investors just yanked more money from American equities that any time since September. Enthusiasm remains bridled as a logjam of investor concerns, from China growth to ineffective central-bank policy and weakening profits, shows no signs of dissipating.”

“The question everyone should be asking is what has really changed in the last three months?”said John Canally, chief economic strategist at LPL Financial in Boston, which oversees about $460 billion. “Global concerns, while slightly less, are still there.”

Well, of course they are, but to central banks all that matters is price action – the only thing left that they can manipulate – and the hope that upward price action can offset the lack of faith in the economy (and central banks) resulting from downward price action. This also explains why over the past month, we have seen every single major central bank unleash the most unprecedented easing wave, one which even forced the Fed to lose its last shred of credibility in its attempt to push stocks higher.