The 6 May 2010 U.S. market plunge and rapid rebound is called the Flash Crash.
Between about 2:32 and 3:07 p.m. Eastern Time, major U.S. indexes dropped sharply before recovering much of the loss. The Dow Jones Industrial Average briefly fell almost 1,000 points, roughly 9%, one of its largest intraday point swings. High-frequency trading, algorithmic orders, thin liquidity and a large automated futures transaction interacted in ways that magnified selling.
Regulators later introduced circuit breakers and other safeguards to slow disorderly trading. The event differed from a conventional bear market because most losses occurred within minutes and prices rebounded quickly. Navinder Singh Sarao was later convicted for spoofing-related conduct, but official investigations described multiple interacting causes rather than a single simple trigger.