Japan’s Nikkei 225 crash began after the market peaked on December 29, 1989.
During the late 1980s, Japan experienced a major asset-price bubble. Easy credit, rising land prices, strong optimism, and rapid growth in equity valuations pushed the Nikkei 225 to an intraday peak of 38,957.44 on December 29, 1989.
The Bank of Japan tightened monetary policy, and confidence in inflated property and share prices weakened. The Nikkei then fell sharply during the early 1990s. Japanese land and equity values continued to decline, creating a long period of economic stagnation often called the Lost Decades.
The peak date is sometimes mixed up with the date of the later low. The Nikkei’s collapse was not a single one-day event like the 1987 Black Monday fall; it was a prolonged unwinding of an asset bubble. Japan’s experience also differed from the 1997 Asian financial crisis, which began in Thailand and spread across several economies.