Nikkei 225 · February 26, 1990

February, with rates still climbing

-4.50%

single-day change vs previous close

Part of a longer stretch

The bubble's first leg down

early in it · 1989-12-29 → 1990-10-01, -48.04% over the whole period

What happened that day?

On 26 February 1990 the Nikkei 225 fell 4.5%
The Bank of Japan had raised rates four times since May 1989, aiming at land and share prices
When rates rise, what was bought with debt is sold first — and that described Japanese stocks and land
No single trigger can be pinned to this day. It is a large day inside a months-long slide
In this stretch the index was 28.04% below its peak

Sources

Japanese asset price bubble
Bank of Japan

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.