The U.S. stock-market event on May 6, 2010, when prices plunged and recovered within minutes, was the Flash Crash.
During the afternoon of May 6, major U.S. stock indexes dropped rapidly before recovering much of the loss. The Dow Jones Industrial Average temporarily fell almost 1,000 points, or about 9%, in a matter of minutes. Many individual securities traded at extremely low or high prices.
Investigations found that automated trading and a large sell order in E-mini S&P 500 futures interacted with already stressed market conditions. The event exposed how electronic markets could amplify a temporary imbalance in buying and selling.
The Flash Crash differed from a conventional bear market because its defining movement unfolded within minutes rather than over months or years. Regulators later introduced or strengthened safeguards such as circuit breakers and rules for clearly erroneous trades.