The 2010 U.S. stock-market crash that erased nearly 1,000 Dow points within minutes was the Flash Crash.
On May 6, 2010, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged about 1,000 points, losing roughly 9% during the session before recovering much of the decline. Some individual securities briefly traded at extraordinarily low or high prices, revealing vulnerabilities in modern electronic markets.
Investigations concluded that automated trading and a large sell order contributed to the extreme movement. The event involved interactions among algorithmic traders, liquidity providers, and market rules rather than a conventional wave of human panic alone. Authorities later introduced safeguards, including circuit breakers and rules for handling clearly erroneous trades.
The Flash Crash is often confused with a normal bear market. It was an exceptionally rapid intraday disruption, not a months-long collapse like the 2008 financial crisis. In 2015, U.S. authorities charged Navinder Singh Sarao with contributing to the event through spoofing and other trading activity.