The sudden U.S. market plunge on May 6, 2010, was called the Flash Crash.
During the afternoon of May 6, major U.S. stock indexes fell rapidly and then recovered much of the loss within minutes. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped about 1,000 points, or nearly 9 percent, before rebounding. Many individual securities briefly traded at extremely low prices.
Investigations found that automated trading and stressed market conditions interacted in a way that amplified selling. A 2015 U.S. Justice Department case charged trader Navinder Singh Sarao with spoofing-related conduct; regulators also identified broader structural weaknesses rather than a single simple cause.
The event differed from a conventional crash because its steepest fall and partial recovery happened almost immediately. Regulators introduced safeguards such as circuit breakers and strengthened controls around automated trading. The Flash Crash is often confused with the 1987 Black Monday crash, but the dates, mechanisms, and recovery patterns were very different.