The 2010 U.S. market plunge that briefly erased nearly $1 trillion in value was the Flash Crash.
On May 6, 2010, major U.S. equity indexes fell rapidly and then recovered much of the loss within minutes. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped about 1,000 points, or roughly 9%, during the session.
Investigations concluded that a large sell order in S&P 500 futures interacted with high-frequency trading and automated market-making systems. Liquidity temporarily disappeared in some markets, while numerous individual stocks printed extraordinarily low or high prices.
The Flash Crash was not the same as a conventional bear market caused by a prolonged economic downturn. It was a short-lived market-structure breakdown. Regulators later strengthened controls, including single-stock circuit breakers and broader mechanisms intended to slow disorderly trading.