The Nikkei 225 reached 38,957.44 before Japan’s asset bubble burst.
The index recorded that intraday peak on December 29, 1989, near the end of a remarkable rise in Japanese share and property prices. The Nikkei 225 is a price-weighted index of 225 prominent companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s Prime Market. Its constituents include major Japanese industrial, consumer, and technology businesses.
After the 1989 peak, Japanese equities entered a long decline. The fall became a benchmark example of the danger of extrapolating recent gains and of how debt-financed asset bubbles can damage banks and the wider economy. The index did not reclaim its 1989 closing level for decades.
The Nikkei 225 should not be confused with the broader TOPIX, which is capitalization-weighted and covers a wider range of Tokyo-listed companies. Both indexes are important measures of Japanese equities, but the famous 38,957.44 record belongs to the Nikkei.