WhyItDropped

Nikkei 225 · January 16, 1998

Tax-cut hopes

+6.11%

single-day change vs previous close

Part of a longer stretch

When the banks themselves failed

near the end of it · 1996-06-26 → 1998-10-09, -43.18% over the whole period

What happened that day?

  • On 16 January 1998 the Nikkei 225 rose 6.11% in a single day
  • Japanese brokerages and banks had collapsed one after another in late 1997 and financial anxiety was extreme
  • The Asian currency crisis had also darkened the outlook for Japanese companies' sales in the region
  • News that the government was considering income tax cuts and support for financial institutions produced a sharp bounce
  • Consumption had contracted badly after the 1997 consumption tax rise, so hopes for tax relief were high
  • The recovery was slow, though. The Nikkei retested its low that autumn

Sources

Every figure on this page is recomputed from the original daily closing prices and checked against them at build time. The account of what happened is written from the sources listed above.