The 2010 Flash Crash took about 36 minutes to erase and then recover nearly $1 trillion in U.S. market value.
On May 6, 2010, U.S. equity markets experienced an extraordinarily rapid plunge. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell about 1,000 points, approximately 9%, before recovering much of the decline. Many individual securities briefly traded at bizarrely low or high prices.
Investigations found that high-frequency trading and automated order interactions amplified an existing sell-off. A large sell order in E-mini S&P 500 futures was identified as an important trigger in official accounts, although the event reflected the interaction of several market structures rather than one simple cause.
The episode led exchanges and regulators to strengthen safeguards. Measures included circuit breakers, clearer controls for erroneous trades, and mechanisms to pause trading in individual securities. It demonstrated that electronic markets could move at extreme speed even without a conventional economic shock.