Nikkei 225 · May 6, 1970
The first session back after the holidays
+3.65%
single-day change vs previous close
Part of a longer stretch
The 1970 squeeze in Tokyo
midway through · 1970-04-06 → 1970-05-27, -23.86% over the whole period
What happened that day?
- 6 May 1970 — the Nikkei 225 rose 3.65% to close at 2,191.39. No single cause can be pinned to the day
- The index had collapsed in a single session on 30 April, the last day before the holidays. This was the reopening taking part of it back
- That spring a large overseas investment company had failed, leaving European and American banks exposed. The unease reached Tokyo
- A holiday is itself a buffer. With the market shut for days, urgent selling disperses
- The bounce did not end the episode. The index fell further, to its 27 May low
- From the early-April high to the 27 May low the index fell 23.86%
- After that Japanese shares turned up again and went into the long climb of the 1970s
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.