The popular name of the 6 May 2010 US market plunge and rapid rebound was the Flash Crash.
During the afternoon, major US equity indexes dropped extremely quickly. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell nearly 1,000 points, or about 9%, before recovering much of the loss within minutes.
Investigations linked the event to a complex interaction among high-frequency trading, automated order systems, market liquidity, and a large sell order. The episode showed how quickly electronic markets could amplify temporary imbalances.
The Flash Crash was not a normal bear market lasting months or years. Its defining feature was the speed of the fall and partial recovery. A later US Justice Department case involved trader Navinder Singh Sarao, whose spoofing activity was found to have contributed to the market disruption but was not the sole cause.