WhyItDropped

Nikkei 225 · March 23, 2018

The day the tariffs were actually announced

-4.51%

single-day change vs previous close

Part of a longer stretch

Two and a half years the world rose together

near the end of it · 2016-02-12 → 2018-10-02, +62.32% over the whole period

What happened that day?

  • On 23 March 2018 the Nikkei 225 fell 4.51%
  • The day before, the US had announced large tariffs on Chinese goods. The trade war had actually begun
  • Japan sits between the two: parts are made in Japan, assembled in China, and sold to America
  • So when those two collide, Japan is hit first. Cars, machinery and electronic components fell hardest
  • Risk aversion strengthened the yen on top of that
  • The dispute ran for nearly two more years, shaking markets repeatedly
  • In this stretch the index was 14.53% 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.