Erm... you wanna adjust your argument here a bit ? Short covering doesn’t cause a “price avalanche downward”. Short covering is *buying*, and that usually doesn’t lower the price.
I’d go along with “massive shorting by the hedge funds” and “rotation out of commodities”.
Erm... I am so sorry. My intent was to imply covering of longs by going short; unfortunately I took a shortcut, though, and short=circuited my own "argument". Thanks for the polite pedantry, though.