During the 2010 Flash Crash, in which U.S. stock index did the largest points drop occur?

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During the 2010 Flash Crash, the largest points drop occurred in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

On May 6, 2010, the Dow fell about 1,000 points, or nearly 9%, within minutes before recovering much of the loss. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite also experienced abrupt declines. Many individual securities briefly traded at extremely low or high prices, creating a highly unusual market environment.

Investigations by U.S. regulators concluded that a large automated sell order, combined with high-frequency trading and already fragile market conditions, helped produce the rapid plunge. The event led to changes including single-stock circuit breakers and market-wide safeguards. It was not a conventional, weeks-long bear market but a sudden intraday market disruption.

Source: Wikipedia · fact-checked Oct. 2026

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