WhyItDropped

Nikkei 225 · March 26, 1990

A bounce once the hike was done

+4.83%

single-day change vs previous close

Part of a longer stretch

The bubble's first leg down

early in it · 1989-12-29 → 1990-10-01, -48.04% over the whole period

What happened that day?

  • On 26 March 1990 the Nikkei 225 rose 4.83%
  • The hike had been announced a week earlier. Once a feared event actually happens, the fear goes with it
  • Markets price what has not happened yet, which is why bad news being confirmed can send prices up
  • The bounce did not last. The slide was still in its early stages
  • No single trigger can be pinned to this day
  • In this stretch the index was 28.04% 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.