WhyItDropped

Nikkei 225 · March 28, 1995

A bounce into the book-closing date

+3.64%

single-day change vs previous close

Part of a longer stretch

The Kobe quake and a record yen

near the end of it · 1994-06-13 → 1995-07-03, -32.79% over the whole period

What happened that day?

  • On 28 March 1995 the Nikkei 225 rose 3.64%
  • Japanese companies and banks book the shares they hold at the end-March closing price
  • So there is pressure to hold prices up right before that date. With the index low that year, the pressure was greater
  • For a bank, a low share price shrinks its own capital and with it how much it can lend
  • No single trigger can be pinned to this day
  • In this stretch the index was 26.67% below its peak
  • Once the date passed, it fell hard again within days

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.