WhyItDropped

Nikkei 225 · March 7, 2022

The March commodities soared

-2.94%

single-day change vs previous close

Part of a longer stretch

When the easing ran out

near the end of it · 2021-09-14 → 2022-03-09, -19.41% over the whole period

What happened that day?

  • The Nikkei 225 fell 2.94% on the day, near the bottom of this decline
  • After Russia's invasion, oil, natural gas, grain and nickel all surged together
  • Japan imports all of them. Dearer raw materials worsen the trade balance and raise company costs
  • The yen was weakening at the same time. Normally good for exports, here it made the import bill larger still
  • It is a rare phase in which a weak yen does not help, because what Japan buys was rising faster than what it sells
  • 9 March was the bottom, and the rebound began from there

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.