During the 2010 Flash Crash, about how many Dow points were lost before much of the fall reversed?

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost nearly 1,000 points during the 2010 Flash Crash before much of the fall reversed.

On May 6, 2010, US stock markets plunged rapidly during afternoon trading. The Dow’s decline was approximately 1,000 points, or nearly 9%, and occurred within minutes before prices recovered a substantial portion of the losses.

Investigations identified a large automated sell order and interactions among high-frequency trading systems as important factors. Trading liquidity disappeared temporarily, allowing prices in some securities to move far beyond normal levels.

The episode demonstrated that electronic markets could experience extreme instability even without a conventional economic announcement. Regulators later introduced measures such as market-wide circuit breakers and controls on clearly erroneous trades.