The 2010 U.S. market event in which the Dow briefly lost nearly 1,000 points was called the Flash Crash.
On May 6, 2010, major U.S. equity indexes fell rapidly within minutes. The Dow Jones Industrial Average briefly dropped about 1,000 points, then recovered much of the loss before the close. Many individual securities also experienced extreme, short-lived price movements.
Investigations attributed the event to an interaction between existing market stress, automated trading, and large sell orders. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission later described how liquidity temporarily vanished across parts of the market. The event led to reforms including circuit breakers and mechanisms intended to pause trading during unusually rapid moves.
The Flash Crash differed from the 1987 crash because the 2010 losses were largely reversed within the same session. It was also not a conventional multi-day economic depression. The episode highlighted how electronic markets can amplify a sudden imbalance between buying and selling.