What was the date of the 2010 Flash Crash in United States stock markets?

The 2010 Flash Crash occurred on May 6, 2010, in United States stock markets.

During the afternoon, major equity indexes fell rapidly and then recovered much of the loss within minutes. The Dow Jones Industrial Average briefly dropped almost 1,000 points, while many individual securities traded at highly unusual prices. The event demonstrated how quickly electronic markets could move when liquidity disappeared.

Investigations linked the episode to interactions between automated trading, market conditions, and a large sell order, although the precise dynamics were complex. Regulators introduced measures such as circuit breakers and single-stock trading pauses to reduce the chance that similar feedback loops would spread. The Flash Crash is distinct from the 2008 financial crisis: it was an abrupt intraday market disruption rather than a prolonged credit collapse.