Flash Crash was the 2010 US market event in which the Dow Jones briefly plunged about 1,000 points.
On 6 May 2010, major US stock indexes fell rapidly and then recovered much of the decline within minutes. The Dow's temporary loss was approximately 1,000 points, or nearly 9 percent, before the market stabilized. Many individual securities also experienced extreme, short-lived price movements.
Investigations focused on automated and high-frequency trading, market fragmentation, and a large sell order in the futures market. In 2015, US authorities charged British trader Navinder Singh Sarao with contributing to the event through spoofing, although the crash resulted from interacting market conditions rather than one simple mechanical cause.
The Flash Crash differed from a conventional bear market because its most dramatic movement happened intraday and was partly reversed quickly. It encouraged new trading safeguards, including stricter controls and improved procedures for reviewing clearly erroneous trades.