The Dow Jones Industrial Average suffered the 2010 Flash Crash on May 6, 2010.
During that afternoon, major United States equity indexes plunged rapidly before recovering much of the loss. The Dow fell about 1,000 points, or nearly 9%, within minutes, although the closing loss was much smaller. Some individual securities briefly traded at extremely low prices.
Investigations by United States regulators found that a large automated sell order in E-mini S&P 500 futures interacted with high-frequency trading and market conditions. The episode demonstrated how electronic markets could transmit pressure quickly across venues and instruments.
The event was not a conventional, multi-month bear market. Its defining feature was speed: prices collapsed and partially rebounded during the same trading session. Later reforms included single-stock circuit breakers and market-wide mechanisms intended to slow disorderly trading.