WhyItDropped

Nikkei 225 · August 21, 1992

The emergency package

+6.22%

single-day change vs previous close

Part of a longer stretch

The rally the stimulus bought

early in it · 1992-08-18 → 1993-09-13, +47.79% over the whole period

What happened that day?

  • On 21 August 1992 the Nikkei 225 rose 6.22% in a single day
  • Three years into the bubble's collapse, the index was less than half its peak
  • The Japanese government announced what was then its largest ever stimulus package
  • Alongside public works it included putting public money into the stock market
  • Falling share prices cut bank capital, which cut lending — so defending the market was a financial stability issue
  • Packages kept coming but the effects did not last. The Nikkei fell on until 2009

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.