Nikkei 225 · November 17, 2003

Autumn giveback in a recovery year

-3.74%

single-day change vs previous close

Part of a longer stretch

Four years off the bottom

early in it · 2003-04-28 → 2007-07-09, +140.04% over the whole period

What happened that day?

17 November 2003 — the Nikkei 225 fell 3.74% to close at 9,786.83. No single cause can be pinned to the day
2003 was the year the index climbed hard off a spring bottom. This autumn stretch was giving part of that back
The yen had been strengthening all year. A stronger yen takes straight off the profit of a company that earns abroad
The banks carried a separate worry: whether the items booked as capital on their balance sheets could actually absorb losses
That doubt had become real in the spring, when one large bank took public money. The open question was which one came next
The low of this episode came two sessions later, on 19 November. From the late-October high the fall was 13.86%
The index turned back up afterwards and finished the year higher

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 put together from the public record; where a specific source was consulted it is listed above.