The 2010 event in which the Dow lost and regained nearly 1,000 points within minutes was the Flash Crash.
On May 6, 2010, U.S. stock markets experienced a sudden, extraordinary decline. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell about 1,000 points, nearly 9%, before recovering much of the loss within minutes. Some individual securities briefly traded at implausible prices, illustrating how disorderly the market had become.
Investigations concluded that a large sell order in E-mini S&P 500 futures interacted with high-frequency trading and automated systems. As liquidity disappeared, algorithms amplified the movement. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission later described a sequence in which selling pressure and automated responses reinforced each other.
The Flash Crash was not a traditional multi-month bear market. It was a rapid market-structure failure involving electronic trading, liquidity, and safeguards. The event led exchanges and regulators to strengthen circuit breakers and mechanisms designed to prevent isolated trades from creating wider instability.