flash crash

noun

A very rapid, deep, and volatile fall in security prices, followed by a quick recovery, often associated with high-frequency trading.

Ask AI about this wordChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

Meanings

nounflash crash (plural flash crashes)

plural flash crashes

  1. businessA very rapid, deep, and volatile fall in security prices, followed by a quick recovery, often associated with high-frequency trading.

    The next largest, a $6.9 billion flash crash, rocked the Singapore Exchange in October 2013, causing the market to implement limits on the number of orders that could be executed at the same time—essentially, an attempt to block the obfuscation tactics of high-frequency traders.

    2018, James Bridle, “Complexity”, in The New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future, Verso Books, →ISBN, page 122
Cite this entry
APA

flash crash. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/flash%20crash

MLA

“flash crash.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/flash%20crash. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “flash crash,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/flash%20crash.

Source: flash crash on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.