Nikkei 225 · May 6, 1997
Spring, after the tax went up
+3.41%
single-day change vs previous close
Part of a longer stretch
When the banks themselves failed
midway through · 1996-06-26 → 1998-10-09, -43.18% over the whole period
What happened that day?
- On 6 May 1997 the Nikkei 225 rose 3.41%
- That April Japan had raised its consumption tax, judging that it was time to repair the public finances
- Raising taxes means people spend less. The recovery broke here
- In May, though, the effect had not yet shown up in the numbers
- No single trigger can be pinned to this day
- In this stretch the index was 10.93% below its peak
- That tax rise has been cited ever since as a tightening done at the wrong moment
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.