WhyItDropped

Nikkei 225 · February 6, 2018

The volatility blow-up reaches Tokyo

-4.73%

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 6 February 2018 the Nikkei 225 fell 4.73%
  • The day before, US listed products that paid off while markets stayed calm were wound up all at once
  • The Dow had just fallen 1,175 points, the largest point drop on record at the time
  • Japan fell hard through two channels: global risk aversion strengthened the yen, and similar products existed in Japan
  • Shocks like this come from structure, not news. No company or policy is at fault
  • They usually retrace within days, and this one did
  • 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.