How many Dow points did the 2010 Flash Crash erase at its lowest point?

The 2010 Flash Crash erased 998.5 Dow Jones Industrial Average points at its lowest point.

On May 6, 2010, US stock markets experienced an exceptionally rapid decline and partial recovery. The Dow’s fall amounted to about 9% from its preceding level, and the index recovered much of the loss within minutes. Some individual securities briefly traded at extremely low prices.

Investigations concluded that automated trading played a major role. A large sell order in E-mini S&P 500 futures interacted with high-frequency trading and rapidly changing liquidity, helping create a feedback loop. The US Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission later described the episode in a joint report.

The event was not a conventional, multi-month market crash. Its defining feature was speed: prices plunged and rebounded in roughly 36 minutes. The episode led to new safeguards, including market-wide circuit breakers and stronger controls for clearly erroneous trades.