WhyItDropped

Nikkei 225 · June 7, 2010

A remark from Hungary

-3.84%

single-day change vs previous close

Part of a longer stretch

Europe's crisis and a soaring yen

midway through · 2010-04-05 → 2010-08-31, -22.18% over the whole period

What happened that day?

  • On 7 June 2010 the Nikkei 225 fell 3.84%
  • Over the weekend a Hungarian government official had suggested the country's finances were close to default
  • The one question that mattered then was whether the crisis that began in Greece would spread. That remark lit it
  • The euro collapsed and the yen surged. Japan was squeezed twice, by a dearer currency as well
  • The remark was quickly walked back, but the market had already moved
  • In a crisis, what moves prices is not the fact but the possibility
  • In this stretch the index was 22.18% 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.