Nikkei 225 · March 5, 1999
The year rates were taken to zero
+5.01%
single-day change vs previous close
Part of a longer stretch
The IT rally
early in it · 1998-10-09 → 2000-04-12, +61.75% over the whole period
What happened that day?
- On 5 March 1999 the Nikkei 225 rose 5.01%
- That February the Bank of Japan had taken short-term rates effectively to zero — the first central bank anywhere to do it
- With no room left to cut, it was the only tool available
- A deposit paying nothing sends money into shares, and foreign money came in heavily
- Technology was rising worldwide at the same moment, so Japan's telecom and electronics names rose with it
- No single trigger can be pinned to this day
- In this stretch the index was 12.99% 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.