Nikkei 225 · January 23, 1995
The fall after the Kobe earthquake
-5.60%
single-day change vs previous close
Part of a longer stretch
The Kobe quake and a record yen
midway through · 1994-06-13 → 1995-07-03, -32.79% over the whole period
What happened that day?
- The Nikkei 225 fell 5.6% on the day
- A large earthquake had struck the Kobe area a week earlier, and the estimated damage kept growing
- Insurers faced larger payouts, and funding reconstruction means selling assets held abroad and converting to yen
- The yen strengthened as a result — the odd structure in which a disaster makes the currency stronger
- A stronger yen worsens exporters' earnings. The quake damage and the exchange rate landed together
- That spring the yen passed eighty to the dollar, and the Nikkei kept falling to July
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.