During the 2010 Flash Crash, about how many Dow points were lost in roughly 20 minutes?

During the 2010 Flash Crash, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost nearly 1,000 points in roughly 20 minutes.

On May 6, 2010, U.S. markets fell sharply during the afternoon before recovering much of the loss. The Dow’s drop was about 998.5 points, or approximately 9%, and it occurred with extraordinary speed compared with ordinary market declines.

Investigators found that a large automated sell order in the E-mini S&P 500 futures market interacted with high-frequency trading and fragile liquidity. A later U.S. Justice Department case identified British trader Navinder Singh Sarao’s spoofing activity as a contributing factor, though the episode involved broader market mechanisms as well.

The event exposed weaknesses in electronic-market safeguards. Regulators introduced or strengthened controls such as circuit breakers and later examined how algorithmic trading could amplify sudden price movements.