WhyItDropped

Nikkei 225 · December 25, 1991

A short bounce into year end

+3.68%

single-day change vs previous close

Part of a longer stretch

When the bad loans surfaced

midway through · 1991-03-18 → 1992-08-18, -47.29% over the whole period

What happened that day?

  • On 25 December 1991 the Nikkei 225 rose 3.68%
  • 1991 ended as the second straight losing year, at about half the 1989 peak
  • Year-end trading is crowded by tax and accounting deadlines, which makes moves larger
  • No single trigger can be pinned to this day
  • In this stretch the index was 34.19% below its peak
  • It fell further the next year, down to 14,309 by August

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.