Info from Investing.com blog Don't shoot the messenger please:
"Some of my buddies in the margin departments in NY and CHI town are saying margin calls started pre-open with all the leveraged ETFs, non-member and tons of retail accounts without lots of equity. This margin department is so shorthanded today they said its like having 1 collector calling on 1000 delinquent accounts before 9:30am. Retails isn't picking up their phones so alot of spec accounts are getting liquidated at the market throughout the day. Big boy are picking their spots and placing orders with trading desks to come in blocks. For Nat Gas they said the block trades came around 8am, 10am and noon. They have more to go with people cancelling Market on Close orders and going to the Market now. We should see a nice sell off in Nat Gas going into the afternoon session and close... It's going to be sloppy matching orders they said both electronically and phone trades. "