The 2010 Flash Crash sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average down about 1,000 points intraday on May 6, 2010.
During the afternoon of May 6, U.S. equity indexes and individual securities plunged rapidly, then recovered much of the loss within minutes. The Dow’s roughly 1,000-point intraday decline was extraordinary, even though the market finished down less than that amount.
Investigations by U.S. regulators concluded that a large automated futures trade, combined with stressed market conditions and high-frequency trading dynamics, helped trigger and amplify the disruption. Some individual securities briefly traded at extremely abnormal prices.
The episode was not the same as a conventional multi-day bear market. It exposed how electronic trading systems, fragmented venues, and automated strategies could interact unexpectedly. Regulators subsequently introduced measures such as single-stock circuit breakers and broader mechanisms to slow disorderly trading.