The 2010 U.S. market plunge in which the Dow briefly fell nearly 1,000 points was called the Flash Crash.
On May 6, 2010, U.S. equity markets experienced an exceptionally rapid decline. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped almost 1,000 points, or about 9%, within minutes before recovering much of the loss. Some individual securities briefly traded at extreme prices.
Investigations found that automated trading and a large sell order interacted with already fragile market conditions. The event showed how electronic markets could amplify a temporary imbalance between buyers and sellers. It was not a conventional, multi-year crash caused by a broad economic depression.
U.S. regulators later introduced measures such as single-stock circuit breakers and market-wide safeguards. In 2015, the U.S. Department of Justice charged trader Navinder Singh Sarao in connection with spoofing linked to the event; the broader market episode involved many systems and participants.