Japan experienced the Nikkei 225’s record closing high before its early-1990s stock-market crash.
The Nikkei 225 reached a record closing value of 38,915.87 on December 29, 1989. The peak came after years of rising Japanese land and equity prices, easy credit, strong optimism, and speculative investment. When monetary policy tightened and the bubble began to deflate, Japanese share prices fell sharply.
The Nikkei’s decline continued through the early 1990s and became part of Japan’s “Lost Decades” of economic stagnation and financial difficulty. Banks carried bad loans, property prices dropped, and companies reduced investment. The stock-market crash was therefore tied closely to the bursting of a wider asset-price bubble.
Japan is the answer because the Nikkei 225 is a Japanese stock-market index. South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore also have major exchanges and experienced market volatility, but none owns the Nikkei. The record closing level stood for decades before the index eventually surpassed it in 2024.