The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 998.5 points during the 2010 Flash Crash’s intraday plunge.
On May 6, 2010, the Dow fell about 1,000 points in a matter of minutes before recovering much of the loss. The episode affected U.S. equities, futures, options, and exchange-traded funds, with some securities trading at extraordinarily low prices for a short time.
Investigations found that a large automated sell order in the E-mini S&P 500 futures market helped interact with already fragile market conditions. High-frequency trading firms rapidly bought and sold contracts, amplifying the move. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission later concluded that the event reflected a complex interaction rather than one simple malfunction.
The 998.5-point figure is an intraday point loss, not a percentage loss and not the final closing decline. That distinction matters because point values depend on the index level. New safeguards, including market-wide circuit breakers, followed the incident.