The 2010 U.S. market event in which the Dow briefly lost about 1,000 points was the Flash Crash.
On May 6, 2010, U.S. stock indexes plunged rapidly during afternoon trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell nearly 1,000 points, or about 9%, before recovering much of the loss within minutes.
Investigations found that automated trading and unusual market conditions interacted in a way that sharply reduced liquidity. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission later concluded that a large sell order in E-mini S&P 500 futures helped trigger the extreme movement, while another trader, Navinder Singh Sarao, was prosecuted in a related case.
The Flash Crash differed from a conventional bear market because the fall and partial recovery occurred within minutes. Regulators subsequently introduced measures including single-stock circuit breakers and market-wide trading pauses designed to reduce the risk of similar disorderly moves.