A “flash crash” is a sudden stock market decline. This can be triggered by computer selling, turning a small stock market drop into a crash in just a matter of minutes.
 
The May 6, 2010 drop in the Dow Jones industrial average of nearly 1,000 points in about an hour was dubbed a “flash crash” before the close of trading on that day.
 
The term “splash crash” (a cross asset flash crash) was coined by John Bates, the chief technology officer at Progress Software (Bedford, MA), on February 1, 2011.
   
     
POLITICO.com
W.H. reacts to Wall St. flash crash
By EAMON JAVERS | 5/6/10 4:04 PM EDT
The Dow Jones industrial average plunged nearly 1,000 points in afternoon trading before recovering significantly Thursday - but it was enough to sow chaos on Wall Street as traders blamed everything from a technical glitch to chaos in the Greek economy.
 
In Washington, the sudden drop - the biggest within a single trading day in Dow history - underscored just how fragile the nascent recovery could be, as the White House tries to convince the public that signs of growth mean the economy has begun to turn the corner.
 
In what is already being dubbed the “flash crash,” the Dow plunged 998 points before quickly rebounding nearly 400 points. The Dow closed at 10,520.32, a drop of 347.80 - or 3.2 percent.
     
Business Insider
Jon Stewart’s Hilarious Take On The Flash Crash
Courtney Comstock | May. 11, 2010, 8:43 AM | 2,445
Jon Stewart has the funniest take on last Thursday’s market crash we’ve seen yet.
 
From The Daily Show (via Josh Brown):
“Apparently last Thursday at 2:40 PM Wall Street got fat fingered.”
 
Washington (DC) Post
SEC proposes rules to prevent another ‘flash crash’
By Zachary A. Goldfarb
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Twelve days after the stock market took a historic plunge that raised fears of another financial crisis, federal officials are still struggling to understand what went wrong even as they offer proposals for how to avoid another “flash crash.”
 
Regulators offered several possible explanations Tuesday for what was behind the nearly 1,000 point decline in the Dow Jones industrial average May 6. Without identifying any firms or transactions behind the chaos, regulators said in a report that the losses were probably magnified by outdated and conflicting rules as well as a “complex web of traders and trading strategies” in traditional and more speculative markets.