Japan’s Nikkei 225 reached a record closing level of 38,915.87 on December 29, 1989, before its late-1980s crash.
The record came near the end of Japan’s asset-price bubble, when property and share prices had risen dramatically. Japanese banks provided abundant credit, and investors placed exceptionally high valuations on companies and real estate. The Nikkei’s rise reflected both genuine industrial strength and increasingly speculative expectations.
After the peak, Japanese shares fell sharply during the 1990s. The decline was followed by a long period of weak growth, banking problems, deflationary pressure, and balance-sheet repair often described as Japan’s “Lost Decades.”
The record is a closing level, not an intraday high. The Nikkei later returned above the 1989 closing record only in 2024, an unusually long recovery period for a major national index.