The first trading date of the 2010 Flash Crash in U.S. stock markets was May 6, 2010.
On that afternoon, major U.S. equity indexes dropped rapidly before recovering much of the loss. The Dow Jones Industrial Average briefly lost nearly 1,000 points, one of its largest intraday point declines at the time.
Investigations found that automated high-frequency trading, a large sell order, and fragile market liquidity interacted in ways that accelerated the fall. Some individual securities briefly traded at extremely low prices, while others showed unusual spikes.
The event led exchanges and regulators to introduce or strengthen safeguards, including market-wide circuit breakers and single-stock trading pauses. The crash is an important example of how electronic markets can move extremely quickly when liquidity disappears, even without a conventional economic shock.