Japan's Nikkei 225 reached a pre-crash record close of 38,915.87 on December 29, 1989.
That record came at the end of Japan's late-1980s asset-price bubble. Share prices and urban land values had climbed rapidly, supported by easy credit, optimistic expectations, and aggressive lending by financial institutions.
The Bank of Japan tightened monetary policy in 1989, and the speculative boom began to unravel. The Nikkei fell sharply in 1990, while the property market also weakened. Japan then experienced a long period of slow growth, banking stress, and deflation often called the “Lost Decades.”
The 38,915.87 figure is a closing level, not the index's intraday high. That distinction matters because financial indexes can reach a higher point during trading than at the official close. The Nikkei did not regain that closing record for decades.