Hmmm...
I'm not sure that a single entity pulling out of commodities could result in this big an across the board move. And if it was a single entity, why would they pull out so fast that buyers could not keep up?
The traditional answer would be that a massive number of investors suddenly decided the world is a less risky place. But that would presumably push stocks up and interest rates down, and that is not happening.
It will be interesting to see if the fall continues.
L-E-V-E-R-A-G-E
When LTCM started crashing, practically nobody outside the quant hedge fund industry and related traders had ever heard of it, and their actual capital base was less than $5 billion -- large, but hardly a behemoth. The blow-up was triggered by a default in Russian debt, none of which was even held by LTCM.
I'm not saying anything like that is going on here. Just that the ripple effect of leverage can be pretty powerful, in some cases (like LTCM) turning into a domino effect.