Japan’s Nikkei 225 closed at 38,915.87 at its historic peak in 1989.
The index reached that record on December 29, 1989, near the end of Japan’s asset-price bubble. Rising land and share prices, easy credit, optimistic expectations, and financial-sector expansion had produced extraordinary valuations during the 1980s.
After the peak, Japanese equities entered a prolonged decline. The Nikkei fell dramatically during the early 1990s, while property prices and bank balance sheets also deteriorated. The resulting period is often called Japan’s Lost Decades because weak growth, deflation, and financial problems persisted for many years.
The 1989 peak is distinct from the later dates on which the market continued falling. It is also different from the index’s intraday high: the quoted figure is the closing level, which is the standard value used for the historic record. The Nikkei eventually traded far below that peak before recovering substantially decades later.