Nikkei 225 · June 26, 1972
The Monday after Britain let the pound go
-8.01%
single-day change vs previous close
What happened that day?
- The Nikkei fell 8.01% on the day
- On the morning of Friday 23 June, the British government announced it would let the pound float for the time being — that it would no longer defend a fixed rate
- European countries were immediately hit by heavy dollar selling and closed their currency markets; Japan closed its own on the 24th
- The world was then under a new fixed-rate agreement struck six months earlier. Under it the yen had already been revalued from 360 to the dollar to 308
- With Britain out, markets judged the arrangement would not hold. And if it did not, **the yen would be pushed up again** — which for an economy living on exports means profits cut directly
- The expectation proved right. The following February Japan gave up the fixed rate and let the yen float
- Even so, 1972 was a year of large gains. The Nikkei nearly doubled over the year, and this day was a hard brake in the middle of that climb
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.