The market event on 6 May 2010 in which U.S. stocks plunged and rebounded within minutes was the Flash Crash.
During the afternoon, major U.S. indexes dropped abruptly, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average losing nearly 1,000 points before recovering much of the fall. The episode lasted roughly 36 minutes from the sharp decline to the recovery. Some individual securities briefly traded at extremely low prices.
Investigations found that automated trading, market structure, and a large sell order contributed to the turmoil. A later U.S. criminal case concluded that trader Navinder Singh Sarao used spoofing orders in the futures market, though the event involved broader market dynamics as well. The Flash Crash was not a conventional, long-duration bear market like the 1929 or 2008 downturns; its defining feature was the extraordinary speed of the fall and rebound.