Nikkei 225 · May 10, 2013

The day the yen passed a hundred

+2.93%

single-day change vs previous close

Part of a longer stretch

Abenomics, the first leg

near the end of it · 2012-06-04 → 2013-05-22, +88.38% over the whole period

What happened that day?

The Nikkei 225 rose 2.93% on the day
The yen weakened past a hundred to the dollar for the first time in four years. The number mattered more as a symbol than in substance
When a market treats a particular number as a line, crossing it becomes an event in itself, because positions held until then are unwound at once
Exporters also began raising their forecasts around now. Recalculating on a new yen assumption lifts profits sharply
The high of this stretch came twelve sessions later, on 22 May. A single heavy fall there ended the first leg
That one day showed that what rises fast is given back fast

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.