How long did the May 6, 2010 flash crash last approximately?

The May 6, 2010, flash crash lasted approximately 36 minutes. It began around 2:32 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time and, after an extraordinary plunge, markets had largely recovered by roughly 3:08 p.m.

During the episode, major U.S. indexes and many individual securities dropped sharply before rebounding. The Dow Jones Industrial Average briefly lost nearly 1,000 points, while some stocks and exchange-traded products traded at wildly distorted prices because liquidity disappeared and automated systems reacted to one another.

The 36-minute figure describes the overall crash episode, not the time taken for the steepest fall. The most dramatic move happened within minutes: the Dow dropped about 600 points in approximately five minutes, then recovered much of that loss over the following twenty minutes. Investigations later emphasized the interaction of a large futures sell program, high-frequency trading, and fragile market structure rather than one simple “fat-finger” mistake.