Nikkei 225 · April 28, 2016

Down because nothing happened

-3.61%

single-day change vs previous close

Part of a longer stretch

Two and a half years the world rose together

early in it · 2016-02-12 → 2018-10-02, +62.32% over the whole period

What happened that day?

On 28 April 2016 the Nikkei 225 fell 3.61%
The Bank of Japan left policy unchanged that day. The market had expected more easing
The yen surged the moment it was announced, because without easing there is nothing holding it down
Nothing happened, and the price moved sharply. What the market had priced in was simply erased
That is the risk in a market lifted by central bank expectations: doing nothing becomes bad news
Negative rates had backfired three months earlier, which had made the Bank of Japan cautious
In this stretch the index was 21.44% below its peak

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.