WhyItDropped

Nikkei 225 · May 6, 1999

Up after the holiday

+3.59%

single-day change vs previous close

Part of a longer stretch

The IT rally

midway through · 1998-10-09 → 2000-04-12, +61.75% over the whole period

What happened that day?

  • On 6 May 1999 the Nikkei 225 rose 3.59%, right after Japan's long spring holiday
  • When overseas markets rise during a holiday, the whole move lands on the first session back
  • This was a period when technology was rising worldwide
  • In Japan too, telecom carriers and electronic component makers pulled the index up
  • No single trigger can be pinned to this day
  • In this stretch the index was 7.68% 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.