How long did the extreme selling episode known as the 2010 Flash Crash last?

The extreme selling episode known as the 2010 Flash Crash lasted about 36 minutes. On May 6, 2010, major U.S. stock indexes plunged rapidly and then recovered much of the decline before the trading day ended.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average briefly lost nearly 1,000 points, an unusually large move at the time. Many individual securities experienced bizarre prices, and some trades were later canceled under exchange rules. The episode demonstrated how electronic markets could move at extraordinary speed.

Investigations focused on automated trading, market liquidity and a large sell order in E-mini S&P 500 futures. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission reported that algorithmic trading interacted with stressed market conditions and helped amplify the decline.

The event did not represent a conventional economic crash lasting months. It was a short-lived market disruption caused by trading-system dynamics. Regulators subsequently introduced measures such as single-stock circuit breakers and revised market-wide safeguards to reduce the risk of similar cascading price movements.