Flash Crash 3-Year Anniversary Past and Recent Flash Crashes and Computer Software Glitches

The flash crash occurred three years ago on 5/6/10 at 2:42 PM.  The markets were already weak from the Greece debt situation deteriorating and then the bottom fell out.  At 2:47 PM, the Dow was down over 1,000 points on the day. The drop was about -9% in less than five minutes time. The chart shows the daily candlestick for that fateful day.  Note that the intraday drop is shown by the long lower shadow of the candlestick. Price recovered to close at the 10,500-ish level. In about four days time the entire drop was recovered including the losses earlier that day. Several reasons are cited for the drop but to this day the exact reason for the intraday crash remains a mystery. The computer systems and software programs become increasingly complicated.

Here is a list of the major flash crashes and software glitches since the Flash Crash. It is likely that flash crash events will occur with continued frequency moving forward;

5/6/10 Flash Crash
3/23/12 BATS Exchange IPO Debacle
5/18/12 FB IPO Disaster
8/1/12 Knight Capital Trading Glitch
4/17/13 DAX, CAC, FTSE and Currency Market Mini Flash Crash
4/22/13 GOOG Mini Flash Crash
4/23/13 AP Twitter Hack Attack Mini Flash Crash
4/25/13 CBOE Software Glitch
5/1/13 AMT and FMC Mini Flash Crash