The 2010 Flash Crash took about 36 minutes for U.S. stock indexes to lose and largely recover hundreds of points.
On May 6, 2010, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged about 1,000 points, roughly 9 percent, during the afternoon session. Much of the decline was reversed within minutes, although individual securities experienced far more extreme temporary price moves.
Investigations found that automated trading, market fragmentation, rapidly changing liquidity, and a large sell order contributed to the episode. In 2015, U.S. authorities charged futures trader Navinder Singh Sarao with using spoofing and layering tactics; he later pleaded guilty in the United States.
The event differed from a conventional economic crash because the extreme fall and partial rebound happened within one trading session. It prompted new rules, including market-wide circuit breakers and mechanisms intended to address erroneous or highly disruptive trades.