Nikkei 225 · August 28, 1998

After Russia said it would not pay

-3.46%

single-day change vs previous close

Part of a longer stretch

When the banks themselves failed

near the end of it · 1996-06-26 → 1998-10-09, -43.18% over the whole period

What happened that day?

On 28 August 1998 the Nikkei 225 fell 3.46%
On 17 August Russia had announced it would not pay its government debt. A state actually defaulted
That was a different kind of shock from the Asian crisis, because it meant something treated as safe was not
Money fled risky assets everywhere at once, and every market including Japan fell together
A month later the same wave brought down a large US hedge fund
In this stretch the index was 23.02% below its peak
The low of the stretch came on 9 October

Sources

Long-Term Capital Management
Lost Decades

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.