Nikkei 225 · March 5, 1973
Three weeks after the yen was set loose
-5.03%
single-day change vs previous close
Part of a longer stretch
The oil shock in Japan
early in it · 1973-01-24 → 1974-10-09, -37.40% over the whole period
What happened that day?
- The Nikkei fell 5.03% on the day
- Three weeks earlier, on 14 February, Japan had given up its fixed rate and let the yen float. Its currency market had already been shut since the 10th
- The result came fast. The yen went from 308 to the dollar to the mid-250s during March — a fifth stronger in a matter of weeks
- A stronger yen shrinks what Japanese companies bring home from abroad. The more a country lives on exports, the more directly that arithmetic lands on share prices
- Europe was in its own currency crisis at the same time. Italy moved to a dual rate, the German mark came under speculative attack, and one market after another closed
- What began in 1971 ends here: the fixed-rate system that had held the postwar world together was effectively finished
- That autumn the oil shock landed on top, and Japanese shares entered a much longer decline
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.