Japan’s asset-price bubble burst around 1990, beginning a prolonged stock-market and property slump associated with the country’s Lost Decades.
Japanese share and land prices had risen dramatically during the late 1980s. The Nikkei 225 reached an intraday peak of 38,957.44 on December 29, 1989, then declined sharply as monetary tightening and changing expectations undermined speculative valuations.
Commercial land prices also fell for years, damaging banks and companies that had used real estate as collateral. The resulting period included weak growth, deflationary pressure, bank problems, and repeated attempts at economic stimulus.
The phrase Lost Decades commonly refers to the 1990s and 2000s, although some descriptions extend the stagnation into the 2010s. Japan’s crash is therefore not the same event as the 1997 Asian financial crisis, which began in Thailand and spread across several economies.