December 29, 1989, marked the Nikkei 225’s peak before Japan’s asset-price bubble burst and its long market decline began.
The Nikkei 225 reached an intraday high of 38,957.44 on December 29, 1989, and closed at 38,915.87. That peak came after years of soaring Japanese stock and land prices, supported by easy credit, rapid financial expansion, and expectations that asset values would continue rising.
The Bank of Japan tightened monetary policy in the late 1980s. As borrowing conditions changed, inflated property and share valuations became harder to sustain. Stock prices fell during 1990, while property prices also declined, damaging banks and companies whose balance sheets depended on rising collateral values.
The Nikkei’s collapse is often discussed as the beginning of Japan’s “lost decades,” although the economic stagnation that followed had multiple causes and developed over many years. The exact peak date is sometimes confused with the first trading day of 1990, but the historic high occurred on December 29, 1989.