Nikkei 225 · August 18, 1992
When the bad loans surfaced
-47.29%
peak-to-trough, the whole slide
352 trading days · 1991-03-18 → 1992-08-18
back to the old high on 2020-12-29
What happened that day?
- From the high on 18 March 1991 to the low on 18 August 1992, the Nikkei fell 47.29% over 352 trading days
- The 1990 collapse had been about share prices. This time land prices turned, which changed its nature
- Japanese banks had lent against land. When the collateral fails, the loans behind it fail with it
- Admitting the losses would have sunk the banks, so they were not admitted. Cleaning up was delayed for years
- That delay is the skeleton of the twenty-year slump that followed. Postponing a problem means paying more for it later
- The high it fell from was not regained until December 2020
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.