WhyItDropped

Nikkei 225 · January 10, 1997

January, with bank shares breaking

-4.26%

single-day change vs previous close

Part of a longer stretch

When the banks themselves failed

early in it · 1996-06-26 → 1998-10-09, -43.18% over the whole period

What happened that day?

  • On 10 January 1997 the Nikkei 225 fell 4.26%
  • The index had been sliding since the high the previous June
  • Suspicion was growing that the losses inside the banks were larger than reported
  • Banks carry heavy weight in the index. When they fall, it falls
  • No single trigger can be pinned to this day
  • In this stretch the index was 19.94% below its peak
  • That November, major financial institutions actually closed

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.