Net cash flow into exchange-traded funds in November blew away October levels, with more than $26.3 billion coming into ETFs, according to data from the National Stock Exchange.

In October, during the worst of the investor panic, net cash flow into ETFs was only $7.3 billion. There were 271 ETFs and 26 exchange-traded notes with net outflows in October, and 179 ETFs and 16 ETNs with outflows in November.

It wasn't just the usual suspects to whom the assets were flowing. While iShares, SPDRs, Vanguard and ProShares had their usual big flows, most notable was the arrival of Direxion Funds as a serious competitor, which took in $511 million in net new cash in November.

Though ProShares did not slow down while its new competitor made its face known to the ETF world. ProShares took in $4.6 billion in net flows in November, leapfrogging Vanguard into third place among all ETF sponsors and trailing only Barclays Global Investors' iShares and State Street Global Advisors' SPDRs.

ETFs as a whole also continued their ascendance as part of overall U.S. equities trading. ETFs had been nearing the 40% threshold of all U.S. equities trading for months, and in November, ETFs finally broke through that barrier, representing nearly 43% of all U.S. equities trading.

In recent months, ETFs had risen from 30% to the 35% mark, and last month, to approximately 38% of the equities market in the U.S. (See story here.)

There was even some bright news for exchange-traded notes, which had been in negative cash flow territory over the past two months due to their unsecured credit structure and investors abandoning the approach.

ETNs had net cash flow of $18 million in November, with PowerShares Deutsche Bank ETNs leading the way, with $55 million in net inflows.

The story was not as good for PowerShares on the ETF side, where it had its second consecutive month as the only Top 10 ETF family with outflows, shedding $309 million. (Merrill Lynch's HOLDRs also had outflows in the month). That drop by PowerShares was exclusively caused by the PowerShares QQQ (NasdaqGM: QQQQ), though, which had outflows of $310 million for the month.

In terms of year-to-date net cash flow for ETFs, iShares and PowerShares are the only families among the top five ETF companies that are down from 2007 levels.

The iShares ETFs had year-to-date net cash flows of $36.7 billion through November, down close to $10 billion from 2007. Meanwhile, SSgA SPDRs were up from $22 billion in 2007 to $48.9 billion this year. ProShares has soared from close to $7.5 billion last year to close to $16.9 billion year-to-date through November.

The complete breakdown of the NSX monthly ETF/ETN data can be found here.