Japan experienced the 1990 crash after its late-1980s stock and property bubble burst.
Japanese asset prices had risen spectacularly during the second half of the 1980s. Easy credit, strong speculation, and optimistic expectations pushed Tokyo land and share prices to extraordinary levels. The Nikkei 225 reached an intraday high of 38,957.44 on December 29, 1989.
The Bank of Japan tightened monetary policy, and asset prices began falling. The Nikkei entered a prolonged decline in 1990, while land values also weakened. The resulting financial and economic stagnation became associated with Japan’s “Lost Decades,” although the causes and timing of that period are broader than the stock-market crash alone.
This episode is sometimes confused with the Asian financial crisis of 1997, but Japan’s bubble burst earlier and was rooted primarily in domestic credit and asset speculation. The Nikkei’s 1989 peak was not surpassed until 2024.